


Changing Times

by sechar



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-03
Updated: 2017-02-20
Packaged: 2018-05-21 11:08:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 64,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6049366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sechar/pseuds/sechar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's always so emphasised that Detective Chloe Decker - mother of one, ex-actress, fiercely logical and rational - is a human mortal; that is, she was born human, and will die as such when her rightful time is up.</p><p>Well. Isn't that just a little bit simple?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Foundations

**Author's Note:**

> Welp, first story; enter typical note of 'please be nice' and 'I know it's not that good'. Still, if you're here, cheers for reading and hope you actually like it :)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We are all of us shaped by our experiences and memories- but before that, we are shaped by those who raise us.

Penelope Decker (nee Jackson) was . . . unsettled. This was not an easy thing to do to her; acting, whilst extremely rewarding, was often tumultuous and the oft-despaired of passions of artists certainly weren't mere rumours. But her five year old daughter had succeeded in doing what years of acting, social politics, and romance couldn't: derail her plans.

Oh, not that she was like one of those - what did they call them nowadays? Tiger moms, or something equally ridiculous - parents who had their child's life plotted out for them before they'd stopped wearing diapers. No, the most she had planned was vaccinations, at least two extracurriculars (one sport, one more arty, maybe a musical instrument as well if she showed an enthusiasm) from the age of seven onward, and refusing to let her leave school without her GED; perfectly reasonable, in her mind.

But what had just happened was . . . unusual (she hesitated to call it 'not normal', or 'abnormal'). Oh, sure, it seemed minor enough in the long haul - so Chloe got into a little fight at school, in a month no-one will even remember it - but that wasn't what had derailed her plans. Certainly defending her classmate from a bully was a good thing, a wonderful thing that her child, even at five years old, was moral, confident, and intelligent enough to do the right thing- but it was the _manner_ in which it had been done.

Her five year old daughter had walked into the middle of an eight year old boy pushing a five year old girl down on the concrete play area. She hadn't gone to get a teacher, as the more cautious children would have done - Chloe was always running towards anything new and exciting, and she had yet to back down. She hadn't tried to speak to the older kid first - the intelligent children certainly would have, and whilst Chloe was smart and could be downright vicious in her determination to get what she wanted, she wasn't one of those brain-boxes that universities salivated over. (Though, she admitted privately, if the kid was pushing someone three years younger down for kicks, then words probably wouldn't have done a whole lot of good anyways.) Chloe Decker, all of five years old and with her hair pulled back with a rainbow hairband, had _tackled_ the older boy down, then sat on his back as he struggled weakly on the ground.

Thankfully there hadn't been any damage done (barring his pride, which clearly needed deflating); a head injury at that age could have been catastrophic - which was, actually, one of the main reasons that Chloe wasn't facing harsher disciplinary measures at school, what with the boy pretty much attempting to do just that to a five year old child (seriously, how can someone screw their kid up so much so quickly? Were they trying?).

That wasn't the part that overly worried her; she and John had been raising their little girl to do what _she_ knew was right instead of what people said was right. Certainly, it could have been handled differently, but an argument could be made (and had been, complete with great volume and detail in the principal's office) that if Chloe had gone to get a teacher than Sophie could have been seriously hurt, rather than the comparatively minor damage made by her small child against a significantly larger boy. (Oh, she had been tempted to start making pointed comments about sexism, but had held off because, frankly, it was just too amusing to see her daughter sitting like a well-behaved angel in front of her and that boy sitting with his own parents throwing scared looks at the little girl right there. Oh, she was going to be remembering this for quite a while indeed.)

What had perturbed her was that the boy (James? Johnny? Jacob?) had looked fearful and drained of energy. Chloe was full of vitality and almost looked . . . joyous. Now, most women would have explained it away as adrenaline, a poor night's sleep and punctured pride, perhaps even karma kicking in early.

Penelope Decker wasn't one of them.

Her daughter (and she was hers, and always would be, no matter what happened further down the track) was perkier than when she left the house after a full night's sleep, despite the exertions of the day. The other boy (she really should remember his name; it would make teasing Chloe about it easier when she got older) had burned more energy than was proportional to his activities.

It was illogical and impossible, but it was the only conclusion she could draw: Chloe had taken that boy's energy

* * *

Over the next few months, Penelope kept an eye on the situation as best she could (auditions, parties, working- thank god she had her John, or it would be just impossible to manage it all) and quietly thought about it.

Very briefly, she considered that maybe her beloved daughter would be better off with some other family who could devote more time to looking after and caring for her - but she rejected that almost immediately. Chloe was her daughter, and family was more than that. Besides, it wasn't like either of them had any suitable family to do so; otherwise, they would have called them years ago when they were still adjusting to having a child in the house.

It wasn't something that occurred regularly, or even in great amounts. More, it seemed that when Chloe needed something - calm, strength, energy - she could get it from someone else right there and then. It happened more often (easier, perhaps?) if she had a personal connection to them, or was particularly emotional at the time (dear god, please let it not be linked to her emotions so strongly; puberty would be a nightmare). Generally, she took energy; but she wasn't restricted to that.

But she helps her daughter, talks to her about it, makes sure she knows that she is not a freak, that it's just another ability she has, and as such it needs to be practised ("Yes, honey, just like you have to practice for your recital,") to make sure that it doesn't slip loose and wild.

(It's only years later that she realises that her daughter, somehow, has formed it into a weapon as much as possible. That she uses it when up against people she might not be quite so certain about, that she can focus it on other things to compensate for a lack of 'food'. And she smiles, small and honest and vicious in the knowledge.)

* * *

And so the years moved on.

Penelope made sure that Chloe was both loved and got what she needed - affection, laughter, necessary restrictions, as well as the more tangible things. Like making sure that she had the options she needed - yoga (concentration, control, restraint, release), martial arts (concentration, control, restraint, release), music (freedom of expression, freedom in general, emotional catharsis). Like making sure that she knew, even if her parents were busy and they might not see her for more than ten minutes at a time for days on end, that she was loved and adored and she would always be their true priority (Penelope was honest enough with herself to admit that, yes, the luxuries were nice, but she would put her daughter above that without blinking an eye).

And Penelope and John grew a bit older, and had the slightest bit more grey in their hair ("Yes, I'm dying it - I'd never get another job again if I didn't!"), and just the slightest bit more tired. Oh, certainly, it has to do with the active lives they lead (though John is starting to have more desk time and less patrol time, which is doing wonders for her stress levels), but she can't help but think that, maybe, their daughter is killing them.

The teenage years aren't the easiest of things, but they survive. No one collapses into a coma or starts spreading wild rumours about impossible powers, so Penelope classes it as a success.

(She's not ashamed that her daughter did 'Hot Tub Time Machine' - really, it's just people being petty that her daughter is young, attractive, and knows it - she just wishes that Chloe would have done something  _else_ as well. Chloe knows all about the paparazzi and gossip, and she knows that this is the one thing they will focus on until she ends up with a juicier backstory; drugs, suicide, murder, maybe a DUI. And it might be a little selfish, but she wants her daughter to show that she's taught her something -  _when you're beautiful, honey, all you have to do is smile sweetly and look like you don't understand and they might laugh at you, but they'll never see you coming_ \- that her legacy is more than just some cult classic movies and a slightly broken girl-woman.)

She's not dumb enough to think that her daughter is perfect - she's got John's temper, and probably her own ability to choose an outcome and obstinately make it happen (which has gotten her into more than enough shit over the years) - and the Hollywood press machine rips apart anyone even loosely connected. But her daughter is still standing, has her own core of steel (and that's what makes her so proud of her, that she's not just some cheap ripoff of her parents, that she's become this brilliant, tough person who has more abilities and control than most people see when they look at the toned legs and body and see 'sexy' not 'trained and controlled with it') and she is going to set this world on  _fire_.

 

Then John dies.

 

And it's not like it all turns to shit when he ( _please no, not her husband, not her best friend-_ ) dies, because it doesn't. The world keeps turning, he's mentioned in the obituaries, there are flowers and condolences and enough black to make her  _scream_ ( _"_ "No matter how ravishing you look in that dress, Penny of mine, black's a mourning colour - how about that fire-engine red knockout from our anniversary?") and her world keeps rotating round her sun/daughter. So Penelope does what she always has done: she gives the people the show they want, and she bolsters her people until they have steel in their spine and a glint of  _something_ in their eyes; John had justice, Penny always preferred cunning intelligence, and Chloe's still finding her own.

She has to, to keep her daughter from shattering apart. Chloe and John weren't the closest (he never knew about her ability, and he just wasn't there a lot of the time), but they loved each other, that's for sure. And so publicly, she is the devastated widow who is righteously embarrassed by what happens at the funeral. Privately, she is the furiously saddened wife-mother-woman who knows that her daughter found an adequate outlet, and one that will not showcase her ability to every unscrupulous person out there. Hell, it might even work in her favour at times; _if she can't even control her temper against a single pap, how could she be a threat against me_?

John's death cements Chloe's decision to go into the police. She'd tried her mother's career, but found it too . . . artificial, perhaps. So now she will try what her other parent loved doing so much (and some people might call it a tribute, or a desperate attempt to understand her lost parent, but Penny knows that Chloe's doing it because that justice that they have so ingrained into her). But she is not, what some mutter just out of eyesight of the Decker matriarch, purposefully following in her parent's footsteps so as to become them, rather than forging her own path (and, frankly, it's none of their business. Family business' have existed for years, but those children never get psychoanalysed for being happy to do what their parents have bestowed on them).

* * *

Over time, Penelope Decker (nee Jackson) has continued to change and grow.

When first she began to truly be herself, and not just an extension of her parents' rule (she doesn't have voluntary contact with them. Ever.) she was all sharp edges and a venomous tongue, barely blunted by the persona she dons - a little ditzy, but sweet and nice even if not the smartest.

When she starts working as an actress ("You're a professional liar, how on earth can I trust you?" "Honey, an actor isn't a professional liar: we're professional story tellers.") she has refined that mask; she's not the brightest, certainly, but everyone knows she earned her grades, and that she can slip from the professional to the personal without missing a beat, even if she sometimes doesn't quite hit the mark with her roles.

When she starts dating John Decker, she has condensed her poison until it is contained in just a few key areas, and she never stops thinking. But she's happy with John, because he is truly a good man and he really does love her, and if she was ever entirely sure of what she was feeling, she thinks she loves him back. (She says yes easily, as she has a thousand and one times during this life - but she  _means_ it this time, which makes all the difference.)

When she marries John Decker ("I refuse to wear white; my dress is going to be blue." "I know better than to argue with a determined woman, especially one whose three months pregnant and talking about her wedding." "It's nice to know that you don't use up all your sense for your work, honey." "Hey!") she finds that some of her edges have softened. She's pretty sure that only makes her more deadly not less ( _paradox_ , she laughs in her own mind) as she's got something to protect other than herself now.

When she has Chloe . . . she is rewritten. Really, that's all that needs to be said.

* * *

Penelope Decker is fifty-eight when her only daughter informs her she is having a child. She starts making plans, even as she begins to throw together a travel bag. She knew she and Dan weren't going quite so smoothly - and why they were together remained a mystery to her, but she's never been one to make decisions for her loved ones, so she's let it lie - so she'll be damned if she's not there.

Dan is as outwardly charming as usual; he secretly thinks she's a devious old bag with nothing better to do than to gossip all day, but he's polite enough to keep it to himself. She tolerates him (she knows he's nowhere near good enough for her daughter, but Chloe will figure that out soon enough), and for the sake of her daughter, treats him with the resigned tolerance she's developed over the years. She might not like him, but he's going to be in her daughter's life for a long time, what with the whole having-a-child thing.

(And it might sound a bit awful, but she's glad that they're not sentencing themselves to marriage; she and John never wanted her daughter to  _settle_ , and she would have - because she's stubborn enough to have toughed it out and she wouldn't stray or anything like that to ease any gaps because she takes vows and promises so very seriously. In that, she is undeniably her father's child. Penny has always viewed words-lies-truths in a manner that the theoretical fey would: something to be walked around and negotiated and never taken at face value and you always look for the loophole so you're doing exactly what they don't want whilst doing what they said they wanted.)

And she might not have gotten to do what she really wanted, but she's happy with what she has achieved. And it's stereotypical and trite, but she might even write a book for other scared little girls to learn from - all those little tips and tricks she's picked up over the years that mean that things happen rather than not. If she does, the money is all going to her offspring. She's got enough, and she's not going to be around for too many more years; an inheritance would be a nice way to keep her in their minds.

* * *

She is old, and a little bit odd, and loneliness seems to be her shadow nowadays (such a difference to when she was young- younger - and just wanted them all to go away) but she has found her happiness.

Primarily, it's in her daughter. Chloe is a wonderful person, certainly, but it's seeing the small bits of her and John (and, oh, how he seemed to be, cliché though it was, an open wound at times) that help to make her as she is that truly gives her joy. It might be something to do with seeing that she has made a tangible difference to someone in a positive way, or it could be knowing that she directly contributed to forge her, both in the nature and the nurture (and she sometimes hates that it was primarily her, not her husband, who did that; thankfully, Chloe doesn't look to be repeating the mistake with her own daughter, which is another relief that, yes, people do listen to their elders, if only from time to time).

A fair chunk of it is found in her granddaughter. Chloe hasn't shaped her as Penelope did her, so she is still a bit soft and there are less edges to her- but that might be a good thing. Trixie is a charming child, with a degree of tact and empathy that would see her do nicely wherever she ends up. And it always makes her smile when Trixie shows her softness fearlessly, somehow turning lambs wool into armour in a way she hadn't thought possible.

There are smaller pleasures, certainly - good books, music, and nature, cheesy though it sounds - but those are the main ones.

* * *

She gave her daughter the house. Frankly, if one designated 'owning' a house as how much time had been spent occupied by that person, then it would rightfully have been hers from roughly thirteen years of age. And it's weak (but her daughter and granddaughter have taught her that weakness doesn't necessarily have to be stamped out, so she is able to admit it without difficulty) but she doesn't want to live where she and John had made her home.

The memories are a bit too . . . ingrained for her to really be comfortable there. She has enough of them from wearing her ring, which she is not going to take off, no matter how often Chloe looks at it with that peculiar expression on her face. (She finds it rather sad that her daughter has spent more time without her father than with him, and takes a slightly guilty pleasure in knowing that she is Trixie's favourite grandparent. Yes, that includes that man's parents.)

* * *

Sometimes she wonders whether Chloe's ability led to this: John, dead long before his time, and her, dying of cancer that had no history on either side of her family.

She decides that it doesn't really matter. (And she is certainly not going to be the one to say it to her daughter. Chloe has done remarkably well not slowly suffocating under the weight and guilt of her job as her father had begun to do, so she isn't going to do anything to hasten the process.)

Chloe has always come first, and this ability of her's helps her with her investigations and job.

Really, that's all that matters. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter edited 20/02/17:  
> Minor edits from things that were revealed in canon after chapter was posted. Minor grammar/spelling corrections done as well.


	2. Balancing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More backstory!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So swearing starts happening here - but given that the show is rated AO in my country, I'm going to take the wild assumption that people reading this won't be overly offended by expletives. And look - that alternate universe stuff is starting to make a difference . . .

Chloe couldn't point to a particular moment in her childhood and say 'Then - that is when I was told about my ability'. It was just one of those facts that you felt like you always knew; the sky is blue, people are stupid about lots of things, and I have a special ability.

Mom told her, over and over again, not to call it a 'superpower'. She always said it was because it wasn't a superpower, just something she was born with, like . . . singing. Some people were born with a better singing voice, but they still had to work at it so that it could be brilliant. And, besides, superpowers only bring trouble - but if you only tell people you completely trust, Chloe, with your life, your reputation, your future,  _everything_ \- then you won't have those problems. No, that doesn't mean you can stop practicing.

Chloe never tells anyone. (Ever.)

She was tempted to a couple of times when she was younger - her dad (he was never really there, and he was always so tired that she didn't want to put more on him), a couple of friends from school who she was super close with at the time (but they'd drifted away when- well. When the differences became more than they could put up with), her first boyfriend (Max Schwartz. She'd fallen for him, and fallen hard, and she thought he felt the same . . . but they'd split up a couple of months later, the feelings and passion drying up as quickly as they'd begun) - but she'd always kept her mouth shut. It might have been cowardly, and she's sure a shrink would want to talk about her 'trust issues', but she's glad she did it.

* * *

Her mom never realised that she could affect emotions. It's mainly easier than energy; it's not something she constantly has to restrain, for one thing. It's less a dog eagerly tugging on a lead whenever there's someone around and more like a cat: almost all of the time, it doesn't make even the slightest fuss, but every now and again it gets so completely needy that you can't do anything else but obey unless you want to get scratched.

She ignores it, for the most part. It does mean that she can keep her temper more easily, and that understanding people isn't as frustrating as everyone else (well, barring Mom) seems to find it. And it's not even like there's a schedule, or something she could figure out so that she could work around it.

When it hits, it doesn't make her drop unconscious or incapacitate her or anything like that. It's more like the barrier in her head that allows her to  _know_ peoples' emotions without necessarily feeling them drops and she's left feeling everything that anyone who touches her does, plus being astronomically more sensitive to people in her area (the size of which seems to fluctuate for no obvious reason; after all, why should the blind fumbling in the dark she's been doing up to now suddenly become easier?).

The main reason is that her mom has enough on her plate without adding yet another weird thing about her to it. She doesn't want her to panic (okay, that's dumb; mom  _never_ panics) or to go on a frantic research mission like what happened the first time in a vain attempt to find out more. 'Empathy', she thinks it's called, though most people have it in a way that means they can understand why someone is feeling because they've been in the same/similar situation before; hers just takes it a bit further than that. But she doesn't tell her mom for the key reason that she would constantly have to explain what people are feeling, because mom definitely borders on being a sociopath at times, even if she's never going to be because Chloe  _knows_ that she loves and likes things and- yeah.

But she doesn't want her power to become another tool for her mother, which is harsh and a bit judgmental, but it's true. So she keeps her mouth shut, and always referred to her weirdness as a singular ability.

* * *

She was fourteen the first time she lost control and gained an idea. Jeannie was bragging about her mom again, talking about how she was going to be the next big thing, when she just had to make a dig about Chloe's mom.

"And she's not a washed-up old has-been like your mom, Chloe," She'd sneered, that perfectly applied barely regulation lipstick doing nothing to hide the emotions flickering through her so fast ( _angerjealousyinsecuritypridemaliciousgleeanxiety-_ ) that it couldn't settle on one. This wasn't too unusual, especially her age group, but it was frustrating to the extreme and tended to give her a mild headache unless she completely shut out everyone's emotions, which always made her feel a bit disconnected from her own and . . . it wasn't really an option. So she gritted her teeth and coped and used the insight as she had to.

It wasn't that Chloe was a bad person, or that she really hated Jeannie. She'd just had enough, and wanted people to stop looking down on her mom; sure, she hadn't had a blockbuster hit and the movies she was in were a little cheesy, but she was a great mom (even if she wasn't always a good person) and stupid little girls like Jeannie who never saw their parents except in the papers would never understand that.

So she used her powe-  _ability, that's when it really became an ability to her_ \- and took some of Jeannie's energy, using it to fuel her righteous (but was it really?) tirade against her and back up her own words. "If your mom's so awesome, why do you have to tell everyone about it? Surely we'd all  _know_ how awesome she was if she was really all that. Oh, but you don't even see her, do you?" Her eyes raked the other girl up and down, lingering pointedly on her stomach and bird-thin wrists. "Is that why you're not eating? Trying to get mommy's attention for once instead of her precious career?" She'd snatched a particularly large chunk of her energy then, and a little of her resolve for the cherry on top, and Jeannie had fallen then and there.

She got sent to the principal's office; two detentions and a written apology. ("Telling the truth' isn't accepted by most people, honey. They want the image, the illusion, the artifice: they want to be told they're special and have people really mean it, even when they know that they're nothing like it. Still, thank you for standing up for me, and I'm proud that you used the truth to do it. After all, it's very hard to argue against it when the evidence is right there _."_ )  
Jeannie ended up going to rehab and expelled. She'd been taken to the sick bay after she's collapsed, and the nurse had found evidence that she was using. Immediate expulsion. The parents had protested, saying that it was just a youthful rebellion, that their daughter was stressed and they'd have a sit-down talk with her and work things out, and surely he could understand and oh how much of a donation would be needed for the library? They were always looking for more resources, weren't they? The principal had smiled and nodded all the way through their interview, and promptly expelled Jeannie. Bribery and drugs were not tolerated at his school, so they could just-

After that, Chloe had been treated a bit more carefully. People didn't make digs about her to her face ( _Decker_ destroys  _people who go against her, man. She's a stone-cold bitch, and she will fuck you up if-_ ), they didn't invite her to work on their projects ( _Please, let us not get her, she'll make it so- Hi Chloe!_ ), and they definitely didn't become close friends with her ( _if you screw up, she will take you down. Seriously, I heard that she planted the drugs on-_ ). It wasn't like she was alone, she just . . . wasn't close to anyone.

Looking back on it, that was a crossroads. She'd done the right thing, as taught by her family, and she had gotten burned as well. She grew closer to her family after that, because she knew and believed that she had done the right thing, and so did her family. If other people didn't, then they clearly weren't worth her time.

* * *

Religion was . . . a tricky topic for her. Her Dad was Catholic born and bred, through and through; he credited God with getting his ass out of the fire more than once over his career. Mom was a devout atheist; she thought religion was something so that the masses wouldn't panic about how little their lives really mattered in the scale of things ("That quote about it being the opiate for the masses - true enough, but I always saw it more as a fabeled panacea,"). It had led to more than one playful fight - and a handful of serious ones - between them over the years. At the end of it, they always agreed to disagree, knowing that they were both certain in their opinion. And they were kind enough not to force her to pick a side or dictate what she do. Sure, they made sure she had a basic understanding of both of them, and what they meant and all ("Knowledge can always be used, even if it seems pointless at the time, honey,") but they never sat down and said she  _had_ to pick or she  _had_ to do this. They were freaking awesome, and she was so glad for them and their support of her _being_ her.

Chloe . . . wasn't sure. Her ability wasn't one that matched up with anything religious (and she'd checked; 'energy thieves' and 'emotional Geiger counters' weren't known quantities. She was pretty sure that they wouldn't be celebrated or deified if they'd been either a) about then or b) discovered now.) or with the science that atheists preached. That wasn't to say that she didn't respect them both - they both had good points, that was sure - but she felt that if they couldn't fit her into them, then she shouldn't try to fit herself into their niche.

Science was clearly right about some things - dinosaurs being the most obvious one - but religion accepted that there was more to the world, that there were things that humans were unable to comprehend, in a way that made science go 'well we don't know _yet_ , but all shall be explained in time'. Which didn't really sit right to her; a bit of mystery made things more enjoyable in the long run - speculating and coming up with weirder and weirder shit was a great way to spend a sleepless night - but to say 'we will solve it all' seemed disrespectful and arrogant. She thought about looking into Buddhism and maybe Taoism- but that seemed a bit like she was searching for something specific to be able to accept herself. Fuck that shit, she was happy as she was, and she wasn't going to commit to a search that may well prove to be fruitless just to attempt to justify her existence. So there were pros and cons to them both, but she didn't see either as definitive.

Heaven, hell . . . maybe.  Or maybe it was just a really long sleep. Or maybe they would be transported to a planet where everything was made out of marshmallows and ants controlled them as their supreme overlords. Who knew?

But she wasn't stupid or vain enough to think she knew it all. She barely knew herself; how could she even pretend that she knew for sure what was right or wrong on that kind of scale?

So she kept an open mind. Sure, some people were charlatans and just out to make money out of it - but if there was her, surely there were others out there? If she had two powers, empathy cranked up to the extreme and energy converter, then there had to be others out there with at least  _one_ , right?

* * *

She doesn't need a lot of energy for day to day life. Hell, she can get what she wants just by walking down a street and naturally brushing against people because of the crush and the rush. So she doesn't  _have_ to do this. And emotions are more like an extra sense than anything, with her able to take and give them (but only to and from herself) as she wants - but there's almost a door there, one that she has to open in order for it to be used. Otherwise, she just has really good senses for what people are feeling, no matter what their body language says. It's not all sunshine and buttercups, of course - strong enough emotions in large enough amounts can break the door down whether she likes it or not, but most of the time she's in complete control of other people's emotions and emotional states. Doesn't always help herself, but maybe with time she can figure it out, though _how_ she wishes she could know it all now.

But this test . . . she's going to do it. Because she might be fifteen and hormonal and the reason her mother was getting older faster than she should (and she did not want to kill her mom, the only person who's ever been there for her for everything and helps her whether she thinks she needs it or not). She's pretty sure it will work. Science says it will work, and she knows ( _believes_ ) that it will work. Heat is work and work is energy; therefore, she can gain energy from the fire. Fuck, if she's wrong she's going to have to come up with a damn good reason for her mom.

She sticks her finger in the fire. Left hand, because if she _is_  wrong she doesn't want to have her dominant hand out of action.

The flames, which were that red-orange-yellow mass of colours, with sparks every now and again just to blind her, are still there - but they aren't quite as high as before. And the fire's burning through the wood quicker than it was, like it's trying to compensate for the inexplicable, impossible energy loss ( _it's working, it's working!_ ). Hastily, she puts more wood on, making sure not to smother the flames.

And she's sure, she knows it works - so she sticks both hands in.

Hours later, she looks at both her hands - completely burn free and a healthy pink - and wonders if this is how people who sleep properly and eat well and exercise well and don't have an ability feel: like she could do anything, like she could run a marathon easily, like her brain is working faster (or maybe as it should?) without any delays or issues or problems. And it is  _glorious_.

* * *

She stopped looking for others when she was seventeen. Her Dad was dead, her Mom was quietly imploding, she was a laughingstock at school because she'd done that movie (fuck them, it was fun, and her mom had been happy, screw them all), and college was looming.

And she couldn't ignore the damage it was doing. Her mom might support her in everything, but that didn't mean she didn't have feelings (oh, she could definitively say that she had feelings no matter what she thought) and the knowledge that her daughter was still searching for someone else like her hurt. A bit of that was because she thought (irrational though it was, but emotions were rarely rational, and it certainly _wasn't true_ ) that Chloe thought she wasn't enough. A bigger part was because her daughter was unique and no-one else could really relate to her (. . . okay, there was pinch of truth in that one).

She was fine as she was. She didn't need anyone else to be like her for her to like herself. (Alright, that was rather too like one of those self-help books that kept  _coincidentally_ appearing on the coffee table, but it was true nonetheless.)

It was time to stop hoping for miracles and make what she had work. And if it happened to eliminate some negative emotional states in someone she was frequently around, then that's just two birds with one stone ( _never do one goal if you can do more than one, honey; it keeps people confused about what you were_ really  _after_ ).

* * *

It might seem stupid, and silly, but she doesn't swear. And it's not like she looks down on people who swear (fuck, she swears all the time in her head, she just doesn't say it out loud) or that sort of thing. But it's one of her ways of maintaining control, and of paying homage to her mom.

If she loses control enough to swear, then she needs to get out of there. It's like a red flag for her. If she's far gone enough to not be able to filter that out, then she's probably coming close to not being able to rein in her ability - and that would get both awkward and nasty. She worries about it sometimes, what with the career she's working towards, but she knows herself and her levels of control. If she could keep it restrained and just punch out that fucking photographer who gate-crashed  _her father's funeral_ , then it's going to take something apocalyptic (or at least city-destroying) to lose it.

(She worries sometimes about what could happen if she does remove her limits, about what kind of damage she could wreak. Science tells her that energy is everything; molecules vibrate constantly, which is a kinetic energy, logic says . . . so could she destroy anything and everything within her range - and, fuck, she doesn't even know what her range  _is_ \- to a molecular level? Could she sap people of all their energy and kill them on the spot? Could she take out a nuclear reactor just by channelling it? And that's just one part of her 'talent' - could she transfer feelings from person to person without herself as an intermediary? Could she just go up to person after person and suck them dry of whatever she wanted and give them back what she didn't?

She doesn't _know_. And that scares her.

And she is so so grateful to her mom, who made her keep her mouth shut (with logic and reason that she couldn't counter even at her most petulant and moody) and practically hammered it into her that she isn't a superhero and she doesn't have a superpower. She ponders, when she's feeling particularly morbid, about what a different person could have done with her when she was young and malleable and so easy to manipulate. She's guiltily glad that she never told her Dad, never made him choose about what to do and who to trust. She didn't have that issue with Mom; she only trusted herself and her immediate family, and not even then with everything.)

And she keeps all those curse words that want to run riot and screw with people's minds (if she ever swore out loud, then anyone who knew her would probably keel over with shock, which is partially why she does it 'cause when that day comes it will be _epic_ ) inside because her mom is-  _was,_ she's an adult now and living at college and she can't lean on her anymore (she might not be around much more if-) -was her rock, and the lessons she taught her are pretty much always true and applicable.

_If we swear, we look low-class, impulsive, and disreputable - because we're women. When guys do it, they look macho and gutsy and cool. It's a double standard, honey, but use it like you use everything. Observe everything, and see how people react - watch and learn, and you'll know who can be used for what and how to motivate them and who to trust with what._

Her mom has . . . sociopathic tendencies (classes are applicable for more than just work; who knew?), but she isn't a full-blown sociopath or psychopath. She doesn't love a lot of things, and she dislikes more, but she feels emotions and is a brilliant woman who was hobbled because she was a woman and couldn't do what she wanted to. She'd asked once, and the bitter smile was completely genuine as she'd answered with even now a hint of smothered rage ("Politics. And I would have _won_.").

So Chloe keeps her mouth shut ("Use their biases, honey, and they'll roll out the carpet for you saluting all the way,") and works for her dream because if her mom can't have her dream then she is going to achieve her own (and if it's her father's at the same time, then she's always been good at multi-tasking) and do it brilliantly. And  _fuck_ those that say that because she's a woman she can't be a police officer; she's going to do homicide because it's what she wants and what she'll be brilliant at, and screw them and their bigotry. Let's see them try and justify it when a woman does it better than them and their old boys club. 

* * *

Dan's . . . nice. He's not a prick, he's good looking, and he doesn't see anything wrong with her getting better scores than him in some of their subjects. When he brags about getting a better score than her in marksmanship, eyes twinkling the whole while, she _knows_ he's just teasing her and that when she parades her A- essay in front of his B for forensics he knows the same (if not with the same type of certainty that she has).

They don't fall into bed like television shows like to pretend all attractive, physically-attracted college-aged people do, but they do start dating - well, as much as they can between their degrees, their shifts, their families and his job. So, really, it's going out for coffee twice a week as their schedules allow and quizzing each other whilst playing footsie under the table, with the occasional 'official' date thrown in once in a blue moon.

It doesn't hurt that he practically radiates energy, and his emotions are clear-cut and easy to follow. She's not exaggerating or joking: energy seems to fall off him. She doesn't even have to reach, it just comes to her on its own when she's standing beside him. Her pet theory is that he's going to die, and not of old age. It . . . makes a depressing amount of sense. They've picked a dangerous job, so the chances are high, plus he doesn't back down (another reason they get on so well; arguing against someone who goes belly up at the first sign of opposition is no fun at all), and he can be more than a bit aggressive when the adrenaline starts flowing. Whether she's right or not, it means that she's sure not to get too attached to him, just in case.

She gets him drunk one time - she doesn't drink, unless it's to follow one of mom's rules - and starts asking about his family, sharing about her own (well, the public aspects anyway) so he just thinks she's being maudlin and wants to hear about someone else's family to cheer her up a bit.

"Uh, not much to tell, really," he chuckles, neck not quite keeping his head straight ( _Lie -_ _there's some guilt there)_. "My old man buggered off after my little 'sis was born, and Mom was too busy trying to keep food on the table and a roof over our heads to keep us all on the straight and narrow." He swallowed another mouthful, eyes flickering shut ( _tired jealousy, hard fought pride_ ). "My older bro joined the army, and we never heard anything else from him. Don't even know if he's still alive or not. Uh, Harry married her high-school squeeze and has popped out three kids so far; no fucking idea what hubby does, but she's happy so hey!" He snorted a little bit ( _slightly bitter, but resigned_ ), almost spilling his beer when he waggled it at her. "And you, Chlo'? How do I know you don't have an older bro just waiting to take me outside for a word about my intens- intender-  _plans_ with you?"

(Okay, so she hadn't learned a lot. But some people did seem to give off more energy than others - maybe Dan was just at the far end of the bell curve, and he was going to outlive her by a long shot.)

She doesn't pull energy from Dan, but she doesn't kid herself. She doesn't actively pull from him because she doesn't need to. Between what he sheds daily and her fire trick (and she's started making it work with electricity too, though she has to be more careful about that) she hasn't had even a craving in the past couple of months, in stark contrast with high school when she seemed to have one every other day. Things have gotten so different from high school (friends, natural happiness, working towards her goal and getting closer every day) that she's starting to worry about it all turning to shit. It . . . wouldn't really surprise her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mean cliffhanger, I know, but wasn't sure where else to end it. So mwa ha ha ha ha, and live with it, says I :)  
> Also, if it wasn't clear here, her ability changes as she ages; so, yes, there will be differences as this fic goes on. It's not just me having memory loss: this was as planned as anything I ever write is.
> 
> Addendum: Chapter edited 20/02/17:  
> Minor edits from things that were revealed in canon after chapter was posted. Minor grammar/spelling corrections done as well.


	3. Unsettled

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uh, same warnings as the last chapter, really: swearing ahead, which you could have figured out by watching the show. Plus, it's not exactly in chronological order and skips over a lot of stuff, so . . . yeah. And I'm not even one of those organised people who have proper timelines, so don't try asking me for anything precise, you won't get a proper answer.  
> Also, apologies for the delay in posting; between uni, shifts, driving, and my general laziness, this one took awhile. Sorry!

She was pregnant. _Of course_ something was going to happen. She's graduated, had a good job working with the police in LA, hadn't broken up with Dan (she'd been half contemplating dropping a couple of hints to screw with him; ' _I can't believe you'd do this to me! Six years, and you_ still  _haven't proposed? What, am I not good enough for you? Do you not love me?'_ It would be hilarious, because he'd get it within the first twenty seconds - she never spoke like some highly strung stuck-up airhead - and then play along, maybe going for the 'scorned lover' role just for kicks), and her ability hadn't given her so much as a blip in months.

And it's not like it's impossible, or anything; she and Dan have been having sex, and sometimes they might get a little caught up in the moment and forget to use a condom. But she's on the pill - so why the fuck is this happening?

She's followed mom's rules as much as she can- okay, she's followed mom's rules that make sense as much as she can. She's pretty sure that one about mayonnaise was just because of that one guy way back when, rather than because she has feelings of extreme loathing towards a condiment. And she's not naive enough to think that the rules are both ironclad and fool proof; if that were the case, then why did so many of them involve using other people's prejudices and expectations against them?

Most of the time, Chloe can't be bothered to use the rules. This is 2007, and the majority of the world has moved on from the misogynistic/racist/-ist cesspool is was when her Mom was younger. Jesus, the main time she ends up using them is for her job when, as her mother would put it, 'the scum of the earth decide to descend further into the sewer of ignorance and depravity'. Really, mom should've gone into being a writer ages ago, rather than holding off until recently.

And, okay, it's not just that she doesn't need to use the rules, but she prefers to rely on her personality, intelligence . . . and sometimes her ability. It's not like she's some asshole of a hypnotist who abuses their talent for shits and giggles, but she makes it easier on herself. And who wouldn't do that? If you had a choice between a zipped-lip, aggressive asshole of a suspect you were expected to interrogate and a tired idiot who just wants to get some sleep ASAP, which would you choose?

Over the years she's been working on her ability, trying to make it subtle and powerful ( _if you have to pick one or the other, honey, always go for the option that they can't call you out on_ ). She's . . . had mixed results. Stress-testing her ability - okay, poker night when the chips are down - has proven fairly successful (and meant that she had both bragging rights  _and_ the pot), though it's sometimes hit and miss if she's not concentrating on it properly. Which, really, just tells her when she's getting too involved in a situation, which can only be good for her job when-

She's rambling and ignoring the obvious. Jesus, if this is how she reacts - her, the one renowned for being calm, cool, and under control - how the hell is Dan going to take it? Dan, the man who once practically tackled another guy . . . because he'd slapped her ass and then smirked at her.

Well, probably best to wait until he's back at their place until she drops this bombshell on him.

* * *

She's never going to diss the rules again. Ever. Sure, they might not have helped her overly when she got into this situation at the time, but breaking the news to Dan? They worked a treat.

After her mini-freakout, she'd gotten her shit together. Part of the job, really: you can't freak out until your part of it is done, so put it away for now. And right now, her job was to tell Dan that he had impending baby-daddyhood. Oh, and that they weren't getting married.

Really, he took it pretty damn well.

"You're . . . pregnant?" His voice was quiet, his eyes are wide, and she's getting mainly shock with an undercurrent of excitement in there. So far, so good.

"Yeah, I took the test this morning. I'm going to see my doctor after this, ask them for any recommendations - and how common it is for people to get pregnant whilst they're on the pill." Her tone is casual, but she makes sure that her body language is anything but (nerves in the constantly moving hands, resolve in the squared shoulders, and a combination of terror and excitement in her too-bright eyes and uncontainable smile).

"Uh . . . right. And . . . you're going to-" He's gone high-pitched (possible potential hyperventilation? Shock?).

"Keep it. No matter what you decide, I'm keeping the baby." There is no room for negotiation in her tone, but that's fine; there's no negotiation in her brain.

Having a child and a full-time career as well as a partner who has the same is . . . not ideal. But she wants this baby, wants to do for the kid what her mom did for her - and she's got enough self-awareness and hubris to know that she both wants to do better and thinks she  _can_ do better. And even just knowing she's pregnant, looking at her still smooth stomach . . . she has a sudden understanding of people that her ability never gave her in all her years ( _nothing is perfect and fool proof, darling; but it's a matter of knowing that and looking for the weak points_ ). Because she would do anything for her child. So long as her kid was alright, then whatever had happened didn't matter. As a police officer, she should probably be slightly cautious and take into account things like 'the law' and 'due process' - but fuck that for a joke. If her child was in danger, she'd take those fuckers down as quickly as possible, screw the law and regulations and reason, and she wouldn't be too concerned about any bystanders that got caught up in it.

"I . . . need some time to think about this." The shock is fading a bit now, and- yep, there's the uncertainty and terror she'd been half-expecting. Not that she thinks Dan's a chicken about emotional things, but that was where her mind went first, and they're not that dissimilar. There's a reason they haven't discussed anything about their future together, haven't even talked about marriage or babies (or carriages or however that ridiculous rhyme went). It's not that they are uncomfortable with the commitment (clearly, they've been living together for years), it's that they're happy with where they're at for this stage in their lives. And she can say that with certainty that Dan is content with where he is at and he loves her . . . just not in the way that she kinda-really-stupidly wants. Oh, he's still 'in love' with her (and, god, she sounds like she should be on one of those overly long rom-coms) but it's not the kind of love her parents had.

Yes, she judges relationships based on her parents, so sue her. They both had full-time and very demanding careers, yet still managed to raise a (if she says so herself) pretty good daughter who knows that they love her and isn't a total idiot. And she never doubted the love they had for her and one another. Fuck, even if she didn't have her ability she wouldn't doubt it.

"That's fine, nothing major has been decided yet," For some reason, there's something like hysteria in his eyes. Hell if she knows why, she can just tell what he's feeling. "I've got day shift tomorrow, so we'll talk tomorrow night, yeah?" She makes sure to look imploringly at him ( _if he feels needed, honey, then he'll do whatever it takes to deliver - well, so long as he isn't a complete asshole who enjoys using people, but that applies to most of my little tips_ ). For good measure, she bites her bottom lip on the one side (uncertainty) and slightly hunches her shoulders (insecurity).

And just like that, it's like she entered a cheat code and he's transformed from 'Dan, who's having a panic-fuelled melt-down from the shock' to 'Dan, that guy who you've stuck with for eight years and who you know and trust'.

"Hey, hey - it's not a bad thing, okay?" He doesn't go so far as to tilt her chin up so they're eye to eye, but he definitely would've if he was even a shade more unsettled. But the hands gently on her shoulders is a nice touch, and it actually  _does_ calm her down a bit. Police academy training and it's many applications, scene 3642. "I just need a bit of time to get my head around it, yeah?"

Oh, Dan. She'd love to believe that (really, it would be a load off her mind) but she can feel what he's feeling. And he's still feeling panicked and out of control and like the world's inverted. None of which really says 'this is something I've always secretly wanted and it's only the timing that throws me off', which, yeah, had been a long shot.

"Okay," She smiled, and placed a gentle kiss on his lips. It's hardly his fault that she sprung this on him, and she might be wrong; he really could be just that freaked out over how suddenly this has happened.  _Please, please let it be that._ "Well, I'm going to head off to bed now; day shift waits for no one!"

When she wakes in the morning (sleep took a while, but she started making a list of everything she now had to do - notify her precinct, apply for maternity leave, call her mom . . .) the other half of the bed is empty. It neither looks nor feels like it's been slept on. If Dan didn't come to bed at all last night, that means he was either up all night thinking about it (unlikely, that man needs sleep like she needs extra energy) or he slept on the sofa (which he hates doing, because it's not tall enough for him to stretch out and his back feel weird the next day).

_Fuck. My ability was right._

* * *

Her mom takes it calmly over the phone, says she'll be on a flight within a week, and hangs up. Chloe isn't that surprised, though the abruptness was extreme even for her. Her mom's always been a bit possessive, and to find out that her blood family is going to double within a year is enough to make her loosen her formidable restraints.

She doesn't realise just how annoyed she is until a few months down the line when she gets let off shift early (miracles  _do_ happen, what do you know) and walks back into a war.

"Look, I'm not cut out to be a father, so I think it-"

"It does not matter what you  _think_ you know, what matters is what you will  _do,_ and I think that you should be-"

"I don't care what you think, Penelope, and this is  _mine_ and Chloe's child so it doesn't matter-"

"So that's where things went wrong for you, hmm?" Oh shit, her claws are out. This . . . isn't going to be pretty. The last time she'd seen this has been years ago, and the girl still refused to even friend her on Facebook. "It was just your parents trying to raise their kids, and when Papa Espinoza went bye-bye, it was just you lot and Mama. No _wonder_ you think you'll be a shit parent with that sort of track record. In fact, maybe you should-"

" _Enough_." Chloe . . . has screwed up a bit. She's been busy, yes, but that's no excuse for missing this sort of tension that was literally happening under her own nose.  _Fuck_. This has to be fixed, or at least discussed. Things will just implode otherwise. "I don't get why you two dislike each other so much, but this has to stop."

Mom is staring at her like she's waiting for something - what, though? - and Dan is just . . . exhausted. He's tired from keeping up the image he thinks she needs, he's tired from work (which doesn't relent, ever) and he's tired from . . . Chloe.

Mentally, she takes a step back.  _He's tired of me_ _?_ In all the years they've been together, he's never been tired of her. Frustrated, annoyed, sometimes angry- but not tired.

But she can't let on, can't clue him in that she knows more than he'd like. Certainly he knows she's perceptive, but he thinks it's gut instinct and growing up with her mom, who is pretty damn good at that sort of thing. "Mom, just because Dan isn't doing what you think he should be doing doesn't mean he's doing things wrong. He's allowed to have worries, and it's not fair to, to attack him because he does-"

"It's not the worries that concern me, honey, it's that he has half his clothes packed and spends his  _time off_ doing overtime rather than helping you," She hisses, eyes fixated on where Dan is standing, transfixed like prey before a predator.

Wait, what? Dan-

"I'm not going to just, run off and leave her, Jesus Penelope! I'm working overtime so that the kid doesn't-"

And they're off again. Clearly, this is a well-practiced event if her being there barely throws them off stride. (How the fuck did she miss this?)

"What, worry about money? Don't worry about that, Dan, worry about what your kid is going to say when she sees you for the first time in months because you're 'too busy' to even see her! The most important thing is-"

"Having a roof over her head and being safe! Being able to do whatever they want because their parents support them! I want my kid to be able to-"

"What about-"

"You have never-"

"Oh, like you even-"

Chloe leaves. She isn't needed here, and she needs to get her own shit together before she can even think of tackling theirs. And she's a little bit angry at them both. She does not need this shit, and if she can put her issues to one side and work with them whilst getting an up close and personal insight into their emotional extremes, then why can't they? Jesus, she's the hormonal one, you'd think she would be the one having a screaming match. But no. She has to be calm and in control, just like she always is. And she's going to, she is (she's happy she is, that she can do that and be strong no matter what is happening), but she needs to break a little bit first.

* * *

When her mom first gets there, she hugs her. It's not unheard of for her to do so, but it's normally reserved for the big ones (graduation, dad's death, anniversaries). Funnily enough, it grounds her. She and Dan have been dancing a bit around the subject (immature and stupid and very easy to do) and it still feels kinda abstract to her, or like she's heard it about somebody else.  _Oh, Hannah's pregnant? When's she due? What are-_. But her Mom isn't like that, doesn't avoid things just to make it easier for other people or herself. So she's got to get over her hang-ups ( _What if I'm not good enough? What if the kid-_ ) and knuckle down.

After the hug, Mom is gracious enough to wait until they're somewhere private before finishing off bringing her back down to earth and out of her haze of 'There is a person growing inside of me'. "Honey, have you thought about how your ability will affect this?" She arches an eyebrow, as elegantly refined as ever.

She . . . hasn't. Which is really dumb, but it's been a good week for it. "Not . . . really," Chloe hedged, inhaling the scent of her hot chocolate and wishing for a coffee. It might be a little early to be cutting back on the caffeine intake, but she's always used that as an alternative to her energy-thieving, so it's not  _vital_ to her like it is to some officers. And she was eating for two now, so screw you judgmental counter girl if she made sure she had marshmallows.

Mom isn't impressed, but she's lenient enough to just give a pointed look and lean back in her chair.  _Well, do it now then, you silly girl._

Alright. She takes energy from people, and she can transfer emotions, as well as having an increased sensitivity to emotions. Neither of her parents could do it, so it might not be genetic; she'd have to keep an eye on it, and be super careful though, and make sure that the kid knows about secrecy. If Dan asks, she'll say it's to do with her job and her family, and he'd probably buy it, though he might look into her family if he was feeling particularly unsure.

So it might not be genetic. But . . . when she takes energy - could she do that to her kid? Could she, subconsciously, drain the foetus of energy? Jesus fuck, could she accidentally turn her child brain dead with a single slip up?

"Oh shit," slips out on a despairing sigh. Mom clearly understands just where her thoughts have gone, because she doesn't even glare for the obscenity. "I could kill my own kid before they're even  _born_. Maybe I should have an abortion, it would-"

"No," cuts through her beginning panic. Mom - ever steady, supportive, wonderful Mom - leans forwards and grasps her hands. "This is about family, and we do-"

"- whatever is needed for family." Automatically Chloe finishes the sentence, brain still not entirely online. What she needs to do? Then- "Dan," she breathes, a little numb from the shocks that are happening in the past ten minutes.

"Yes," There's relief (because she's not descending into mournful incoherence?), and pride (. . . she's getting her shit together when other people would be breaking down?) and just a sliver of vicious joy (that one, she knows: because this will get rid of Dan).

Because to make sure that her child would be healthy and that nothing went wrong because of her ability, she would need to be constantly full of energy (well, I've just guaranteed myself the 'pregnant glow') including in the middle of the night. So she has to get Dan back into her bed so that if she's asleep then she can leech off of him.  _Fuck, this implodes any long term relationship plans._ Draining a man day after day is not going to make him happy, especially when he sees that she is positively glowing with vitality; hell, that's more likely to finish off this relationship, especially when you take into account his previous hesitation about the kid and her determination. But she is not going to cheat on Dan, no matter how much more convenient it would be for energy gathering. So she will use him for her child, and she will not say one word as to why he is so tired and cranky, and she will not stop him from leaving.

Because he will leave.

(In the end, he lasts longer than her mom (pessimistic) and she (hopeful) had guesstimated; he hangs around as the de facto male parent until Trixie hits two. By that stage, it seems like there's more coffee in his bloodstream then blood. Oh, it's not like she kept purposefully draining him after Trixie was born, but between work, a young kid and that little thing called life, he was in no state to keep going and he knew it.

She doesn't blame him, inwardly. Outwardly, she makes sure bring the guilt on in bucket loads for ditching their daughter - because that would be exactly what she _would_ do if she didn't know that his innate energy levels just didn't seem to be recovering no matter how much coffee and sugar he had. She feared she might have broken him, and that he would definitely die young now that she'd interfered. And, sure, she regretted that she'd done it: but she'd do it again. Family first, always, and Trixie is more her family than Dan could be even if they ended up getting married (which, ha, not happening in this universe, thank you very much).

And maybe it's a little screwed up just how easily she can use Dan without regrets ( _partial lie, she thinks about it whenever she sees him_ ) but she's long known she's not normal; her ability simply gives her something to point at as a reason rather than blaming her mom or the way she grew up or whatever.) 

But her daughter - her beautiful, beautiful daughter - lives and seems completely normal so far. She doesn't shed energy like her father, and she doesn't seem like a black hole like her mother. There's been no sudden onsets of unusual emotions or anything. Beatrice Samantha 'Trixie' Decker seems to be a perfectly normal child, and her mother couldn't be happier with her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So clearly I've started saying 'screw cannon', so hope you can see why I've done what I've done (and who knows, that sentence might even make sense to someone other than myself). Also, have just picked a surname for Dan; it is cannon to know that Chloe's mom was Penelope Decker, and I think it unlikely that Dan took Chloe's last name when they were cannon-married. So . . . yep, that's my reasoning and I'm sticking to it.
> 
> Addendum: Chapter edited 20/02/17:  
> Minor edits from things that were revealed in canon after chapter was posted. Minor grammar/spelling corrections done as well.


	4. Bending

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heh heh heh. I'm fairly certain there will be a bit of hate coming after this one . . . but let us see how it goes >:D

Trixie is exhausting. Thank god that she's finally hit kindergarten age, even if it is currently for only half a day, because she was half-seriously considering getting a diagnosis of ADHD just so she could justify drugging her into calm compliance. She wouldn't, really, but it's a nice little fantasy when her daughter has been up since 5am and hasn't stopped moving since then, especially with that accursed word in her vocabulary. ( _No._ Who was the idiot who taught her daughter that word?)

Regardless, her being at kindergarten means that she gets more than just naptime and once the sun's set to do her work, which had been starting to stress her out over the past couple of months. Officially, she's on a graciously-extended maternity leave and looking over some of the backlog of complaints because the department is kind and caring about its' officers like that, even if they're still doing something to get their money's worth. Which is both nice and sufficiently business-like that most people hear about it, shrug, and carry on with their day. Unofficially, she's reviewing their internal regulations and looking for gaps and loopholes that have been used in the past to make things happen in a not really legal way; the letter of the law with the wrong spirit. It's dull and frustrating ( _seriously, just because she's good at catching criminals doesn't mean she can think like a corrupt police officer abusing the system_ ) but it has to be done and if she wants to make it clear that she's still committed to the department (and continuing working there) despite becoming a mother she has to suck it up and get on with it.

And it's not even like she could cry 'Sexism!' and get away with it (which she wouldn't, that would be taking the easy way out and probably reinforce their belief) since there is a precedent for it. Granted, they were more doing actual paperwork and less  _rewriting their rules and regulations as needed_ but that just means that she is a) more respected and b) more disliked than the previous women. Jesus  _fuck_ is it boring, but it's also important and she doesn't half-ass things so she's going to keep suffering as she slogs her way through this mess.

And her daughter being a hyperactive bundle of joy certainly didn't make it easier.

She's . . . pretty sure Trixie doesn't have her full ability. Partial, probably, but not the full whack. Or if she does, it's manifested in a different way. Her energy levels are at what most would compare to ADHD, but it's been proven that Trixie can concentrate just fine when she wants to; she just prefers to be moving as much as possible. Thank god for that, otherwise Dan would likely insist on taking her to one of those quacks who hand out pills like candy, and there is no way her daughter is being medicated unnecessarily.

But she hasn't noticed her taking energy or losing energy in unusual ways. When she was younger, she'd sometimes have a nap when all the other kids would practically be vibrating in their seats; she'd assumed she's somehow 'leaked' the energy, or something had happened for her ability to kick in on its own and without her direction. But Trixie seems like every other three year old, and certainly hasn't suddenly fainted or anything. Well, it might be too early for it to really show itself; in five, ten years, she could have it - or not.

The empathy, on the other hand . . . that is so there it isn't funny. Ironic, considering that for her the energy was undeniably her stronger aspect. Who knows why; Darwinism, a quirk of fate, maybe a higher power having a laugh.

Trixie didn't seem to be stealing emotions, or amplifying them; she seemed more . . . receptive, even if the person in question was trying to hide it in some way. Hell, if anything that seemed to make her more certain, like she could tell it was a front.

Needless to say, she was pretty much turning into being the best possible friend someone could have, and she certainly had a fair number vying for the position. She was a wonderful little mediator, and there hadn't been anything more than a few mean words before things had been resolved properly. Frankly, it astounded her. Chloe, between her heritage and her ability, along with her admittedly loner-like personality, had never been popular, let alone sought after as a friend. Which made it especially difficult when something like this happened. Why was being a parent one of the most daunting things in the world?

"Mommy, why did Rachel push Jenny over at playtime? They were friends before school! Why can't they just stay friends?" Trixie may have been empathetic to the extreme, but she didn't have the emotional understanding, psychological maturation, or experience to be able to comprehend why some things happened. Don't get her wrong, she was learning almost scarily fast, but there were still some things that a three-year old was unable to understand, and so the duty fell to her to explain it.

"Well, sweetie, sometimes people don't always stay friends, or things can happen that make them mad. Do you know if anything happened before playtime?" 

". . . Rachel had to go to the office about something, and she looked really sad when she got back." Trixie was thinking hard, that cute frown on her face communicating just how much this meant to her.

Chloe crouched down beside her daughter, making sure that she had her attention. "Sometimes, when people are really sad or angry, and they don't know what to say to the person who made them feel that way, they have to express that feeling to someone else, to try and make themselves feel better." Her own mom taught her this, but a bit differently; it had been more couched in terms of not taking it personally, and how to use the guilt that would almost certainly kick in after the rush wore off.

" . . . But that's  _silly_ , Mommy," and Trixie looks a bit confused and upset, and she really shouldn't find it so adorable, but that little pout and her furrowed brow are positively charming.

"Emotions don't always make sense, sweetie. That's why people try so hard to control them, so that they don't make mistakes like that."

"So . . . Rachel wasn't really mad at Jenny? She was mad about something else?"

Time to tread carefully once again. "I can't say for sure without knowing more, Trix, but it seems likely. I'm sure that if you talked to Rachel and Jenny about it separately, then you'd know more about what happened." Uh-oh, there's that flash in her eye, the one that means she's got an end goal and she's determined for it to happen. "But you can't force people to be friends, sweetie. They have to make up on their own, without you pushing them together."

Trixie starts to droop, and her bottom lip is getting dangerously close to pouting. Chloe hastily continues, knowing full well that at least part of her reaction is manipulation.  "But that doesn't mean you can't talk things through with them one at a time to make sure that they both understand what happened and what went wrong."

Trixie brightened up, happy now that she both had a basic understanding and a way to 'fix' the problem. "Thanks, Mommy! Love you!" She chirped before rushing off to do . . . something. Drawing, probably, she enjoyed doing it. Sure, she wasn't the most talented, but why should that matter?

 _Now, if only my problems could be solved so easily,_ Chloe mentally griped, staring at the piles of paper, scattered books, and tangle of cables that had taken over her desk.

* * *

Dan was . . . adjusting. He was getting better at not hovering, at not being all romantic partner-like, and he was clearly getting used to being able to do what he wanted when he wanted. But he wasn't all the way out of 'partner' and into 'friend', which could be particularly annoying.

Like now. When he was trying to tell her what to do about Trixie and her imaginary friend.

"Look, Chlo', I'm not saying it's a  _bad_ thing for her to have one, it's just that maybe you shouldn't indulge her so much, y'know?" And he sounds all earnest and serious, which means that he genuinely believes this. For fucks sake, why couldn't she have picked someone who had a better sense of humour, or even someone who could just roll with the punches a little bit? They wouldn't be having this discussion and her life would have one less issue, both of which she would gladly welcome.

"Dan. She is four years old. There is absolutely nothing wrong with her having an imaginary friend, and if I started treating said friend as though they didn't exist, then that is  _exactly_ the message Trixie would get." There's that huff of a breath that means he's gearing up to have a go at her - and, god, why is that practically normal for them these days? She makes a parenting decision that he doesn't fully agree with, and suddenly he has to bring up absolutely everything that went wrong in their past - and she is so not in the mood. "Dan, I really don't care what you think about this. If you're disagreeing based on your own childhood, alright, I get that. But I am Trixie's primary caregiver, and I am the one who is there for her roughly seventy percent of the time."

Oh, yep, that's got his back up for sure. Best to nip this in the bud.  _Soften your voice, gentle sigh, folded arms, weight on back foot._ (Sure, he might not be able to see her right now, but the body language means she's more likely to not slip up; a message for him and for her, in a nutshell.) _"_ I know that you want to be there more, Dan, and that's great. But the reality of the matter is that I am the one who is there pretty much all the time, so I get to deal with any fallout from the decisions." Please, please let him accept that bit of logic and not start arguing again.

"I get that, Chloe, I do, but I don't think-"

Okay, her temper has officially snapped. "Dan, I make the decisions. If you want to be more involved, be here more." She hangs up the phone.

. . . Alright, so that was a bit harsh. But she was over Dan second-guessing her and trying to be the patriarch and never  _actually_ being there or doing anything important. And her mom is . . . not good. The cancer is winning, and she hates it, and there's nothing she can do.

And it is pissing her off. There's always something she can do, between her myriad of talents and powers, but this is beyond her.

So she and Trixie skype every other day, if Granny's up to it. And it's partly a 'making memories while you still can' thing, and a little bit of 'Trixie should know at least  _one_ grandparent' all topped off with 'denial in the extreme', because that's just the sort of person she is.

But they'll keep doing it for as long as they can, because her mother will not be forgotten about just because she's ill and dying and not within three hours driving.  _Family first, always_.

And she will keep Trixie happy and healthy, but she will never lie to her daughter. So, yes, she will set a place for Amy the Armadillo, but she will tell Trixie that some people won't believe her about Amy, and that some people would get mean about her having Amy as a friend, and so she should be careful about who she tells about Amy if she doesn't want Amy's feelings to get hurt.

To be perfectly honest, this was not what she was expecting when she became a mother - but fuck it, it means she's becoming incredible at rolling with the punches, keeping a straight face, and she adores her dynamo of a child. And nothing will change that.

* * *

It's really weird what her ability has been doing. For the last couple of years - and she can't link it to her pregnancy or giving birth, it happened after that - she's been getting almost hotspots. Places, or people, or maybe its things, that seems to just light up like a beacon to her energy sense. They're not stationary, whatever they are, but they feel like they  _should_ be, these monoliths that give off energy like a power station.

And for all that, there's something . . .  _restrained_ about them, like they're  _holding back_ despite how much they're giving off.

She hasn't actually run into one in person yet - at most, she's sensed one from a couple of blocks away - but something tells her that these things are dangerous and should be respected. And thank fuck that it doesn't seem like their emotions are equally as heightened (if whatever it is is even a living thing, and not some kind of idol or totem that keeps getting dragged around LA by a rabid worshipper). The few times she's run into someone whose emotions are more extreme, they've always been doing something crazy, are about to kill themself, or (and this one was a one-off, thank god) are one of those super-stoic's who outwardly seem to react to nothing. Which was really fucking scary when she could feel everything they were feeling, and it was like a squirrel on crack how quickly he was flashing through his emotions and how intense they were. She was sixty-five percent sure he was part of the mob, or something along those lines, because how else could he have both perfected that poker face _and_ have to interact with her in an official capacity?

But these - she's gonna call them lighthouses, for now - lighthouses keep popping up every now and again in her range. It's a little bit terrifying, because she's fairly sure they're not human. No human, and she has met a lot over the years, has both that much energy and the ability to keep losing it at that rate. Continuing the analogy: if they're lighthouses, then the average human is a candle. Dan's a torch, on a good day. It's that kind of magnitude of difference. And it's probably a tad arrogant, but she's either a wall or a black hole, depending on whether she's using her ability or not. Given that she can sense them - can they do the same? Is that why she hasn't met one yet, despite them being on her radar for so long?

Jesus, that's arrogant. Just because she _thinks_ they can sense her, she automatically assumes they must be purposefully avoiding her? For all she knows, she's as indistinguishable to them as every other person in this city, and hasn't even been noticed and it really is a coincidence. Or maybe she's just not important enough to bother with. Or- you know what, this way lies madness. She could think herself in circles forever, but the truth of the matter is that she hasn't interacted with one, and so has no way to get a proper read on them. End of story.

And she really doesn't want to be re-evaluating her belief system (she is well past that shit, she has a daughter plus a career) but she gets the feeling that she might end up having to if she ever ends up meeting one of these lighthouses. Because that is not human.

And she's not stupid enough to provoke them - they'd squish her, easy as that. So she is in no way going to let on that she knows what they are. Because that might well give them the green light to do whatever they want to her if they had an inkling that she wasn't like every other human on this planet, 'cause, technically, if she's not like every other human, then she must be more like them, and so should be subject to whatever laws or regulations (are there enough of them to require that kind of bureaucracy? Or are they self-governing? Or do they just do what they want with no consequences, so long as the general public don't catch on?) they have.

She'll keep an eye out, and she'll be cautious. She won't seek them out, she won't call them out - but that doesn't mean she can't screw with their heads a little bit. And, sure, that's not a healthy and sensible reaction to all this - a more-powerful being probably shouldn't be teased like a friend or family member - but she's always been a little screwed in the head, and her mom taught her to enjoy the little pleasures in life; and screwing with someone's head whilst making it look like you aren't is one of the top ones.

* * *

Internal Affairs. It's where it's been not-so-subtly hinted she should consider transferring to. And she gets it, she does; she's an intelligent woman who has previously been subjected to discrimination in the workplace and therefore likely has a bit of a personal vendetta against those who continue to proliferate stereotypes and biases. But on the other hand, it makes it look like she's been run out of the department because she's a weak woman and had to take refuge in IA for safety and a continued job.

Which she is absolutely not alright with.

She's fine doing scut work for IA when she's working part-time or on maternity leave, but she did not work her ass off for literal years in order to be relegated to becoming a mistrusted, paranoid, pessimistic paper pusher. She is a detective, and she will work as one until she is no longer able to, fuck what anyone else wants. (Except Trixie. If Trixie had a legitimate list of reasons for her to stop doing her job, she's consider them.)

So she keeps working as best she can to help IA tighten up their procedures, because she is fully behind what they do, but she will not transfer to them full time.

* * *

Things, over all, are mellowing out a bit. She's getting used to her busy schedule -shifts, Trixie and the associated activities, as well as making sure she's keeping her skills up. And Dan's getting more used to things, feeling more certain about what his new position does and doesn't allow.

Which is good. Really, it's great that things are going well.

. . . Okay, she's a bit bored.

Which makes her sound like a whiny pre-teen, but it doesn't make it a lie.

She's gotten used to spending whatever free time she has catching up on stuff, mainly work, and now that she has more actually _free_ free time . . . she doesn't know what to do. She spends her time as is doing the sort of things her mother would give a pleased nod to - though it should be noted that her mother had an abundance of differences from most other fulltime-working moms - and it's going smoothly. She's kept up the piano and still does judo, though both of those are now more in the form of a tutor or temporary teacher. Which makes sense; that thing about only really knowing something when you can teach it has more than a grain of truth in it. 

But her routine has settled, and her mind hasn't. Her mind has gotten used to running on insufficient sleep, on compensating with caffeine and energy theft, on having three hours to do twenty different things and all of them vital - and now she's back to what an average person would call 'busy', not what _she_ calls busy.

And patience has never been her strong point. There's a reason she went into the police force, and it wasn't all to do with justice and doing the right thing and a family legacy. No, she just wants to know, and she wants to know quickly whatever it is she wants.

So if this keeps up, and her boredom keeps rising, and work isn't really needing her all . . . she's probably going to do something stupid.

Like accidentally-on-purpose run into a lighthouse.

She's a minor-league adrenaline junkie (she'd hardly have kept up with everything if she wasn't), has a near incessant need to know all about whatever catches her fancy, has a likely unique power . . . and she's lonely.

She tries not to lie to herself. So: she's lonely.

She doesn't have friends her age. Definitely not school ones that are any more than a coffee every few years as a catch up/one up. And work . . . the majority of women there are, to put it politely, ambitious. And that's not to say that they begrudge her and her position, or anything . . . but they're competitive, and slightly jealous, and they have had plenty of practice doing the social politics that being a woman seems to demand. Chloe's knowledge is more theoretical, and with a few cheat codes thrown in thanks to her mom. So she probably  _could_ make friends with at least a couple of them, but it would be far more effort than it seems to be worth, and she probably wouldn't end up enjoying the friendship in the end after all. So - no go there. And the guys? Yeah, nah. She'd either have to go 'full bro' or 'complete girly-girl' for that to work; and she is not that desperate for companionship.

Really, what she needs is someone who accepts her as she is right now - mid-thirties, a single mom, working a full-time job, not always socially astute, and with a surprising knack for reading people - and who will be her friend. (Her mom is shuddering right now at the cheesy childhood-esque angst she's feeling, she just knows it.)

Tall order. But without that . . . well, the something stupid seems more and more tempting each day.

And she wouldn't change that. Some people might gripe and moan about doing or not doing something, but, to borrow a Yoda-ism, 'Do or do not; there is no try.'

And Yoda was bang on. It's all about you and your willpower. It does not matter whether someone else is waving a plate of chocolate in front of you, or is offering you a lifetimes supply of free balloons - temptation can be said no to. Willpower trumps it, if you want it hard enough. And she  _knows_ want in a way that very few can claim to; she's surrounded by it on a daily basis, after all. And with her line of work, then desire comes in all guises; wanting that money, wanting power, wanting control - it's all there.

And she has to feel it all, buffeting her on every side.

So, yes, Chloe Decker is tempted to do something stupid. But her willpower, logic, and stone-cold reason are saying no. So stupidity waits another day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter we start getting to cannon events. So, for all you who have asked/requested: on comes Lucifer.
> 
> (Admit it: that last section, you thought I'd do something different, didn't you? heh heh heh)
> 
> Addendum: Chapter edited 20/02/17:  
> Minor edits from things that were revealed in canon after chapter was posted. Minor grammar/spelling corrections done as well.


	5. And so

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucifer Season 1, Episode 1 - Pilot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Be amazed - after however many words of back-story, we finally get into the actual season. (Shock, horror!)  
> I admit, I wasn't really expecting the back-story to end up being so long, but I blame the scant facts we have on Chloe's background plus my imagination for stretching it out so much - and even so, I know I glossed over a fair amount of time. Oh, and I'm not going to repeat verbatim phrasing and conversation; probably should, but both can't be bothered to find/rewatch every episode, and can justify my doing so under the tag of AU. Still, enjoy!

She's between partners - again.

Ever since she got those damned legislative changes in place she's been- in limbo is kinda the best way to put it. Cops pride themselves on many things, from the amount of coffee they drink (black, and as much as possible, and if you throw in even a hint of cream or sugar you will be labelled as 'weak' until that has changed - and even then, you'll probably still get a nickname that you can't shake), to the number of years they've served, to the goriest scene they've been at (and there are some that sound like they should be horror movies, seriously).

And chief among things they hate? Snitches. Doesn't matter if they've known you for five years, ten, thirty - if you're a snitch and you get found out, you had best get out as fast as you can whilst you still have all your limbs - and if you're very lucky, you might even get to keep your dignity. Because in their eyes, a snitch is a cop who didn't have the guts to make a decision, and who uses everyone for their own end. And there hasn't been a known snitch who has lived longer than five years, guaranteed. Because no one, on either side of the law, is going to trust them; you can never be entirely sure which side traitors are on, whether they're genuine or just playing a longer game or maybe doing something  _else_ entirely. So no-one looks out for them, or lets them know if the crosshairs are coming a little too close for comfort. And then there are the criminals who don't exactly enjoy having their hotline unplugged - and they're hardly renowned for being the most self-controlled and self-disciplined bunch. Someone is going to get an itchy trigger finger, and neither side cares about the person at that stage.

But for all that - for all the distrust, the dislike, hell, the sheer  _antipathy_  - they were one of them. And, yes, that's why it stings so much that they've chickened out and gone belly-up for the other side - because they were  _one of them_. And that's something that's always whispering in the back of their minds. So cops hate snitches, but the reaction tends to be more of a 'strike from the records/turn into a morality tale' rather than the 'open-season' it is for criminals.

And so Chloe Decker is both respected, disliked, and not really trusted for what she has put into motion. (She's almost having flash-backs to high school, the reactions she gets when she walks in and out of a room.) Fucking Palmetto Street. Accusing a long-standing, well-respected cop who's currently in a medically sustained coma doesn't win you any fans. But her accusation is taken seriously, because they know she's been with IA and wouldn't make a claim just to make herself look better or anything. So Malcolm Graham is pitied, both for his alleged actions and the results, and for the knowledge that she thinks he's dirty.  _Jesus, it pretty much_ is _high school again, with people thinking I can do whatever the fuck I want or will lie and manipulate to make certain things become true._  His family is taking it hard; he's not a cop to them, really, he's a beloved father/husband/friend, not a badge and a set of rules and regulations.

Her allegations mean that his support is quiet and understated, because whilst they don't like her (and they  _really_  don't like her right now), they can't deny that she is a good cop, that she tries to avoid the office politics where possible, and that she had earned and deserved both her rank and her secondary help with IA. So she's respected, but it's an icy regard without any like or warmth in it.

Partners . . . don't last with her. Partly because of the gossip about her that they get inundated with, partly because it seems like she's eternally getting rookies -  _Make them half-way decent, Decker, and then we'll get them off your hands -_  which is fucking annoying because as soon as they're competent and she no longer wants to stab them in the eye with a pen they're gone, and partly because of her ability.

The ability that no one properly or actually knows about, but still seems to have been subconsciously acknowledged by everyone. It's . . . kinda her fault, that aspect. When she was purposefully draining Dan nightly, she hadn't thought anything of it- well, other than the guilt and regret that hung around whenever she saw him. The problem now was that she  _couldn't stop it_. It was like her switch was broken, or maybe had vanished into the aether.

Oh, it wasn't like anyone she touched lost all their energy, or even half; they lost the same amount as ever. Emotions were the same, with maybe her ability being a bit more grabby towards the positive emotions (subconscious compensation for her job?). The issue was when she was spending long periods of time in close proximity with people she wasn't blood related to. And hadn't  _that_  been a fun thing to figure out by trial and error; her mom and Trixie had been kept at arms-length for a couple of weeks whilst she experimented. Then mom had put her foot down (like she always did) and out and out hugged her. It had been a close thing for her instincts to not kick in, she was just so on edge, and it seemed like luck and circumstance that they hadn't. But she hadn't taken even a shred of energy or emotions and, after she'd finished internally freaking out and hugging her five year old to within an inch of her life (school holidays had kicked in when her avoidance had begun, so those holiday programs had begun, thank fuck), she'd chalked it up to some evolutionary process she didn't understand and moved on. There was so much she didn't know or comprehend about her ability that she was half thinking about, instead of retirement, walking up to a science lab and just submitting herself. It would be long, and tedious, and repetitive, but she would finally  _know._ And if the boffins couldn't figure it out, then she'd have to content herself with giving them an eternal headache.

But the point was her partners had high turnover. Rookies got tired quickly, more easily, and she drained them emotionally and physically and more comprehensively than any other cop could claim. So she'd started being used almost as a meat grinder for newbies; like if they could survive her they had a better than average chance of actually making it. It was annoying, but she took what pride she could in it; sure, she'd likely never be seen as anyone's shoulder to cry on (which was probably a good thing; the only practice she had was with her daughter, and the issues were not going to be the same. And if they were, there were some serious problems) or be one half of a buddy-cop movie - but she would  _make_  something of them. (She was used to being on her own, but her daughter had really illuminated for her that 'alone' and 'lonely' were different and very similar if you weren't really paying attention.)

If it wasn't for her family, she may well have quit. Not really trusted or accepted, kinda ostracised, no close friends, powers that were still not entirely under her control - she may well have just said 'enough' and walked away, no matter how much it would have hurt. But in this life, she had her family, and they were her motivation for pretty much everything she did. She wasn't completely selfless - there was still stuff she did just because she wanted to or that would only benefit her - but they were the original reason for a lot of the things she did, even if it had become more about her over time.

* * *

When she first meets Lucifer Morningstar, her day had been . . . alright. Busy, yes, but that was fine. She was without a partner once again, which was frowned upon by regulations, but made possible due to both her rank and the fact that most people don't want to partner with her (by now it's an old hurt, even if it is a bit humiliating and gives her so much déjà vu about high school). Dan has a tendency to do the same, but for him it's more because he does things in his own way. Not outside of regulations, but very . . . particular in his methods, and their superiors were well aware that he worked best on his own.

Dan is in one of his fits of over-protection. Which is fucking annoying, but the man thinks he has a right to it what with the eight years together and one kid between them. And she might even actually believe that herself if she a) needed protecting and b) was an easily lead, weak-willed fool. But she's a grown woman, they have been separated for years, and she is a detective to boot, so she's just pissed off.

But she can't lose her temper because they're in public, they're at work, and if she did do anything then she would get a write-up for 'inappropriate and undignified' conduct, not Dan, the man who can't seem to engage his memory whenever it suits him, be they at work or otherwise.

So she takes a deep breath in, and gets on with her job, blocking out Dan as best she can.

"It's an open and shut case, Chloe. Little Miss Delilah here was taking drugs, she welched on her dealer, and her dealer decided to even the score. A bit of bad luck - or narcotics - later, and the dealer is dead. Say 'thank you' for the easy case now, Chlo'." He's joking around, trying to make her laugh. She just kinda wants to punch him in the face. He invades her crime scene, thinks he can tell her what to do, then expects her to laugh about it? Fuck that.

"If it's that easy, Dan, then why on earth was she riddled with bullets? If she really had ripped him off, then he could've just knifed her without the fuss and muss of a bullet, let alone however many were fired here. Besides, how did he know where she would be at that  _exact_ moment? Her agent has already said that she hadn't been to this club for months, apparently from a desire to start getting it together - so how did one low-life drug dealer happen to know just when the one person who apparently wouldn't want him to know would be? And even if she had previously let slip that she would be going to this club again, which I doubt, then why go for a  _drive-by shooting_? The chances of both of them being in the same place at the same time is minimal, what with the main purpose of a club like this to be seen  _inside_  with the rich and the famous."

Dan doesn't seem impressed. "Look, Chlo', maybe - I don't know, he had another client inside who texted him and let him know?" He's not certain, which is particularly frustrating since he swaggered here in all confident he's just given her a rock-solid case. If it falls apart that quickly from only their brief conversation, then a lawyer would rip it to  _shreds._

And  _Really? You want to play this game with me?_   "Then did you find a phone in the car that had any recent calls or texts to it?"

Dan's scowl was an indication that he was shit out of luck in that regards. "Presumably he dumped it somewhere or left it at home."  _And that's going to be vital evidence; no one is without their cell phone nowadays, be they a drug dealer, a judge, or the local rabbi._

"I would also be very interested to know as to why he doesn't currently have a phone, but certainly has such a distinctive, gaudy watch." She nods at the watch in question. The bloodstain will likely detract from the value, but it doesn't do a thing to hide the size. "As well as which, I'm still curious to know as to how our killer knew the victim would be then and there at this particular time. If he didn't, then perhaps it's a random act of violence, or a drug-induced paranoid episode resulting in two deaths and several injuries." Dan's eyebrow definitely conveys what he thinks of that. His mouth opens to fully enlighten her. She's not in the mood. It is ass o'clock in the morning, and she's going to be awake for another six hours at least between this case and her daughter, and all of it on about four hours sleep. "It's unlikely, I realise that, but the amount of information we have and the manner of death means that it should be entertained as at least a possibility."

She pulls out her notebook, vindictively pulling a thread of energy from Dan. It's petty, but so is she. "I need to talk to the owner - Morningstar something. Could be they were after him all along and he got lucky."  _If the owner has a habit of walking outside his bar at this time, it would make one hell of a lot more sense._

Dan's blinking heavily -  _he_ hasn't been the one operating for years with the tank half full, and boy is it showing tonight - and in no condition to argue any more. Which is good. She's on edge as it is, and Dan prodding her buttons is making her that much closer to blowing up.

There's a lighthouse in that club. The club that she has just unequivocally committed herself to entering. Oh look, the adrenaline's kicked in, what do you know.

Time to bite the bullet.

* * *

Morningstar is a lighthouse.  _Lucifer Morningstar_ is a lighthouse.

(For fucks sake, why did this have to happen at four o'clock in the morning, is there no god- oh wait, his, sorry,  _His_  existence has just been confirmed unreservedly. For crying out loud, she  _does not need this shit_.)

When she first walked into the club, she had braced herself for a lot of things. That the lighthouse was a person was one of them (as had it being some sort of ancient statue or something - she's seen the Mummy, alright?). She was prepared for that.

That he was a fallen angel with a British accent who took great glee in fucking with people with the truth was not one of them.

And it  _was_  the truth. Those lessons so carefully taught to her so long ago hadn't been pinged even once. Oh, sure, he was probably being very careful with his wording, but she was long used to that. Just meant she'd have to think on his words later, and try and return the favour. That is, to tell him only the truth without a single lie . . . but never really  _the truth._ After all, depending on how you thought, you could say that the sky was orange and not be lying. After all, the sky  _was_ orange . . . for a brief period of time under very particular circumstances, perhaps, but it was still true.

And this being had declared, without a hint of the self-consciousness or pride that most people who'd picked their own name that he was Lucifer Morningstar. At first, she'd thought it was a cunning stage name - Los Angeles, hello? He wouldn't be the first to try and make a pun to win over the locals - but he had been so amused with his phrasing; 'God given', for crying out loud.

But it was the power that had sold her. This man was a lighthouse. She could believe he wasn't from earth, and 'fallen angel' made as much sense as anything.

The power was . . .  leashed. Sort of. It wasn't like it was floating off him in waves or anything, or that it was drifting about exploring its surroundings. No, it was more like it was tethered to Morningstar with a rather long rope, and was directed by his focus.

And when Morningstar had focused on her - 

The hair on the back of her neck had gone up. That primal warning of 'danger danger get the fuck out' had been blaring with klaxons and neon lights without pause.

So what does she do? She starts to mock him. (Sometimes, she's not sure if she's an adrenaline junkie or just slightly insane. Days like these, she thinks she's more half-insane.)

But at least she had confirmed that he wasn't part of the hit - paid off to lure the girl outside, then gotten the hell out of the way; it was a reasonable explanation as to why he wasn't even scratched, was right there, and how the girl had been there. He had been scarily genuine with his want to punish the people who had killed his - friend? Lover? Associate? - former resident singer, and particularly . . . zealous with his need to do something towards it. (She'd managed to not shudder when he started talking about punishment. If she'd thought he was just some delusional nutcase, she'd have shrugged it off as just him needing some pills or maybe just being  _that_ into BDSM. But this guy was the real deal, and was utterly earnest with his fervent want to induce suffering in the mastermind. Jesus fucking Christ, that was terrifying - however many years working as the jailor of hell and still that dedicated to his job? She most very definitely wanted to be going to the pearly gates, thank you.) 

And the fucker had seen her movie. Wow. The Lord of Hell had watched her movie, nude scene and all. That was the only way he would even bring up possibly meeting her before - or he was just that much of a slut and genuinely could not remember all the people who had been in his bed. Or maybe he was just trying to piss her off. That one seemed less likely, since he had been decidedly persistent in wanting to know what she was going to do. If he really didn't want the case going anywhere, then all he would have had to do was agree with the story/information Dan had given her.

Not this one. A 'neatly wrapped present', her ass. It's like he's trying to goad her into doing her job, like he thought he actually needed to- wait. He said something else - that was it: 'corrupt organisation'. He had out and out called the LAPD corrupt.

Now, it could just be an attempt at reverse psychology . . . or the guy could genuinely have had dealings with the LAPD in the past that went sour, or needed a little something extra, or -

Or this guy could have some link to Palmetto Street.

Well. What a meeting that was.

* * *

He'd said he was immortal. Blatant, blunt, not hiding in the least: 'Benefits of immortality'.

But - that's not immortality. Immortality is living forever. Invulnerability is being unable to get hurt. So . . . which is it? Both? One or the other?

And was it because he was an angel - fallen, yes, but still an angel - or because he was a lighthouse? Are all angels lighthouses?

Hell, (she really needs to work on her phrasing, thinking on it) if angels are real . . . are demons? And what do they show up as?

(She refuses to think that she could be immortal. Until informed otherwise, it's only angels that are immortal, not energy thieves/empaths.)

* * *

The dead guy - Eddy Deacon - is the drug dealer for, more or less, Hollywood. Well, C-list and below Hollywood. The phone, which had been lying abandoned on the floor of his flat, had told that tale and positively waxed lyrical about it, complete with lurid details and maybe even slyly wiggling eyebrows thrown in for emphasis.

She'd had another look at the pictures that had been brought back; it was, basically, a dingy flat. Pizza boxes, t-shirts crumpled on the floor, plastic bags everywhere - a bachelor pad. And all of it flavoured with the chemical stench of drug manufacturing. If the man wasn't dead, he'd certainly be in jail until he was with what had been found there.

So, really, it makes sense why he was wearing the watch: he didn't want something clearly valuable (whether it's monetary or sentimental) being left behind with his associates. Or he just really loved the watch to the point that he never took it off.

But - how did he  _get_ the watch in the first place?

It doesn't fit with anything else in Eddy Deacon's lifestyle: not his clothes, not his friends, not his food. Just nothing. It is the only thing that says upmarket and rich (if tasteless); so if it was just a knockoff,  _Dan,_ then he'd surely have at least a couple others for when it inevitably broke. If he was just a massive fan of looking rich but spending fuck all, then there would have been fakes for everything all over that place.

Nope. Nada. Zilch.

That watch is the only thing that doesn't fit with everything else. That watch is important. That watch may well be the key.

(. . . Or it could be a final present from the only woman who he ever really loved. What? Soap operas mean that you can think of a lot more possibilities, even if they do rot your brain. And it had always been fun to watch them with her mom when she was younger. Her mom was absolutely hilarious when she got going, and she positively relished ripping those shows to shreds.)

Chloe makes sure to highlight the watch for processing. If it's a fake, how old it is, was there an inscription - she wanted to know it all.

It might be nothing . . . or it might be everything.

* * *

On arriving at 2 Vile's house, she had known Morningstar was in there. Frigging lighthouse.

(Her life. She was so over it sometimes.)

The butler was pleasantly helpful on arrival - "If  _you_  have narcotics, miss, then please follow me," - and so she had a most beautiful reason to walk in with her gun drawn. (She probably shouldn't have done it that way, but she was entering an unsecured location with an unknown number of suspects/hostiles without backup or even a partner. She would be able to argue her way out of even a slap on the wrist if she ever got called up on it.)

And she'd walked in on the lighthouse surrounded . . . and there were a lot of guns drawn.

Fuck. Her. Life.

"Everybody put your guns down!" Why does she have to deal with this shit? No one  _else_  ever walks in on wannabe gangsters about to execute someone. "You-" She shouldn't have shaken the butler, but she wasn't feeling nice right now. "- collect all the guns in the bucket. Now!"

The rapper has his arms up. The idiot doesn't. The idiot is also speaking. "Detective! So you did listen to me, you sly dog, you."

Yeah, how nice, now let me do my job. "2 Vile, talk to me about Delilah-"

"Oh, you're too late Detective; we've already had a nice chat. The man's innocent of her demise; and believe you me, I've just threatened his life, he would've said."

. . . does he not care for human laws, or is he just that used to getting his way? "You what." It doesn't even come out as a question, she is just that dumbfounded.

Then the rapper jumps in. "Yeah, uh, isn't that illegal?" For a man who surrounds himself with people carrying concealed - and she would definitely be getting someone to be following up on that; every person in the room both had a registered gun and was allowed to carry it concealed? Yeah,  _nah_. - he was rather jumpy. Also, you'd think he'd have a firmer grasp of the law, particularly little things like 'Is threatening someone with a painful and agonising death okay?'

"Just a little bit, yeah." That should be obvious, even to these people who seem to pick and choose which laws apply to them. And she's not sure whether that's because they're used to racism, or they're used to incompetence. That's it, she needs back up: both to get a written statement from 2 Vile, to figure out those guns, and so that she could get Morningstar out of there before he provoked one of these trigger happy bystanders into shooting at them both. And she would definitely end up injured; whether or not he did was something else entirely.

"You're coming with me," She said briskly, pulling out her handcuffs and forcibly turning him so she could cuff him. He didn't resist, which was the first point in his favour for this whole thing. May well be his last if he keeps running his mouth like that, but still.

"If you really wanted me alone and in handcuffs, Detective, you could have just asked. I assure you, there-"

"Stop. Just stop." A two hour nap while waiting for results is not enough for this shit. "Lucifer Morningstar, you are under arrest." That feels so _very_  good to say.

"Under what charges?" The peacock is looking almost offended.

"Impeding an investigation, threatening to kill, and, oh yeah, if I do this you might actually stay out of my way." And wouldn't that be nice.

"I've been helping, Detective, doing the legwork of questioning these lowlifes so you don't have to. Are you sure we haven't met before this? I could've sworn I've-"

"- seen me naked, yeah, you've said. May I recommend that you stop trying to picture me naked? I have a gun and absolutely no compunction about using it on you for you to really want to keep talking."

He scoffs. That fucker. Why- oh, right. Maybe immortal and maybe invulnerable. Really, she doesn't think that when she's looking at him. She just thinks of him as yet another asshole who's attractive and knows it. With a European accent on top just in case he wasn't getting laid enough already. "Detective, I've told you before: I'm immortal. A measly bullet isn't going to make any difference to my health." She really shouldn't get into a debate with him about the meaning of the word immortal. She really, really shouldn't.

_Delilah._

Exactly what she needs - a nice cold dose of reality that isn't complicated by . . . otherness.

"Mr Morningstar-" Formal is good. Gives barriers, makes people back off from flirting and trying to chat her up.

"Please, Detective, call me Lucifer." Or not. "It feels so very wrong of you to call me that. Like I'm about to be called in to the principal's office to get detention, you know?" Well  _that_ got off track very quickly.

"Mr Morningstar-"  _He's trying to provoke you, ignore the energy focused on you, think about the case, don't_ \- "Why were you here?"

"Why, I was investigating Detective, and I found out something quite interesting."

 _Don't rise to the bait, don't rise to the bait_ \- "And what's that?"  _Damnit._

Morningstar is smirking at her, like this is all one grand old joke and he's the only one who knows the punchline. "That Delilah was not being faithful to that two-bit loser and was instead having an affair." He paused, almost like he was waiting for her to say 'and?' leadingly. Yeah, nah. "With a rich, married man."

Okay, that is interesting, and certainly adds something else to the investigation. "Great. Who?" Being concise was probably the best way to get out of this without tripping up about her powers. Keep it short, simple, and turn him off before he got interested. Guys like interested women, or at least women who act interested. Be a bitch and shut them down and they couldn't say goodbye fast enough. Really, the ego was an incredibly delicate thing.

"I don't know." Her face says exactly how helpful she finds him right there. Which is about as useful as balls on the pope. He sure is keen to make up for it though. "But! But - I do know who her therapist is." He looks so smug right now, it's- wait, what? He looks smug, yeah, but he feels . . .

Chloe is not sure what he's feeling. It's strangely muted, barely there; almost like it's muffled by something. God, it's like whatever she senses whenever she has to interview someone who's depressed, high, or otherwise using some substance to moderate their emotions/mentality (they're linked, she  _knows_ it in her bones).

But is this because he actually  _is_ like that, or because he's a lighthouse? Because he's not human? She can't sense whatever dogs are feeling, so-

"Hello, Detective? Are you still with me? Thought you'd gotten lost inside your head for a moment there."  _Impatience._ That one was clear. And it grounds her, and reminds her that now is not the time for theorising: now is the time to be solving a homicide.

"Sorry, a thought came to me." What Chloe says is completely true, and he knows it. But she has to throw him off, can't let him get comfortable. "And why should I trust what you're saying? You're a club owner in LA who has just had a woman gunned down in front of said club practically in his arms. If anything, I should be referring  _you_ to a therapist, instead of listening to your advice."

He doesn't look thrown. If anything, he looks pleased. "Detective, I never knew you cared! It warms my heart to know that. But-" And there, the energy was focused on her once more. "- you should trust me, Detective, because I want justice for Delilah. Yes, she was killed in front of me - but I'm not some traumatised little Good Samaritan, and more importantly she was killed unnecessarily. The girl was-" He stopped.  _That_ made her look up from her casebook. Because she understands people, and this? For Morningstar, this is a neon sign screaming 'Weak Point' right there. Lucifer Morningstar was a smooth, charming ladies' man, who said what he wanted in an exotic accent dressed like a debonair bad boy; he did not pause, or hesitate, or otherwise stumble over even a syllable.

"Delilah was lovely before I met her. She was glorious afterwards, for the too-brief time when her star was in ascendance," His face has stopped smiling, and he almost looked . . . haunted. "I want the mastermind behind her death found, Detective, because she was an incredible person who was properly talented and she  _did not_  deserve this."

Morningstar looks . . . nearly deranged like this. Most people wouldn't see it if they only looked at him, would see that calm face with that glint in his eye and think that he was just feeling particularly mischievous. Chloe Decker looks at the clenched fists and the tensed neck and the  _fire_ in his eyes and thinks 'dangerous'. This is a man who wants to cause pain to the true killer, and they want that pain to last.

It is the most genuine thing Morningstar has shown her. It is real. And, slowly, Chloe lets herself nod. Just the once.

Morningstar beams. Fuck, it's probably a good thing for her his emotions are a bit screwy, because otherwise she'd be in emotional whiplash right now. "Excellent! Now that you are going to be listening to me, I feel I should let you know this: I figured out where I know you from." He's still grinning, but the fire has banked. "And I just want to say this: Hot Tub High School has definitely, the best straight to video not-actually-porn nude scene." His hands are hovering over his chest ( _Not hers, otherwise she would have kicked him, lighthouse be damned_ ) and making a motion that-

"Where are the handcuffs? The handcuffs that I put on you not five minutes ago?" Chloe is not thinking about shooting him. Nope. Nuh-uh. Definitely not.

"You can't honestly expect me to believe that no one else has ever done this before to you? Surely you must have had at least one escapologist or BDSM practitioner get out? Really, what is the world-"

"Shut up and get in the car." He perks up, twirling the handcuffs around one finger. "And give me those, would you?" Lucifer rolls his eyes, but hands the cuffs to Chloe. He manages to get in the car without causing her further aggravation, though Chloe gets the feeling that he's laughing at her all the while.

She takes some pleasure in making him sit in the back, behind the grill. Yeah, yeah, she's petty.

* * *

She's always been one of those people who makes goals. Small ones, big ones - just goals. Some were daily things that she normally did anyways; drop Trixie at school, do the grocery shopping, get her paperwork done, that sort of thing. Others were a bit bigger; get through police academy, don't kill Dan, don't fuck up Trixie, look after mom.

Her biggest one always related to her abilities.

Don't tell. Keep control. Know what you can and can't do. Find your limits.

And always keep your mouth shut and don't attract attention for that.

She's done pretty well for that, and she is so incredibly glad that she grew up when Big Brother wasn't on every street corner. And she's even more grateful that if Trixie got anything, it's far less flashy than her ability is.

Lighthouses had thrown her for a bit of a loop, but no more than when she first met Dan or when the Trixie train came a'knocking.

But so long as she sticks to the rules, then she can ride this one out just like she did the others. Only difference is that she'd be sticking to her longest-term goals and inverting all of mom's rules. Because her goal right now was to get Lucifer Morningstar to stay the fuck away from her.

If he stuck around, then she was going to be getting a lot more scrutiny. He would pull her into that world, tar her with his brush and leave her no way to get out of it. She would suddenly be on the radar of every person, creature, or being that knew Lucifer Morningstar, LA club owner was actually  _Lucifer Morningstar_  and would want to know about why he kept hanging around that one human.

She was already on the back foot because of her ability.

Because his little eye trick, the one that worked on every human who he could keep direct eye contact with? (Would it work over a camera? Could he video conference someone and mind whammy them into it? Or was it distance related? What were the energy costs? Were there any other side effects? Did-)

It didn't work on her.

 _Fuck._ Just another way she was different, huh? She didn't fall for his every word, she certainly didn't put up with his bullshit, and she was immune to his 'charms'? She was utterly failing at putting him off. People liked special, they liked unique, they liked interesting. Being a bitch is not enough to put them off; if anything, it makes them think you're genuine because only a properly talented diva would throw that kind of shit. And, boy, was she just ticking those boxes for him right now.

The reason his trick didn't work on her was because she could see what he was doing, could  _feel_ it and just like with stage magicians - once you know the secret, you can't fall for the magic.

It made sense to her, when she'd had it done to her and seen him do it to someone - that poor Doctor Linda. The woman was clearly competent and had plenty of wealthy clients, and she'd seemed to turn into a lust-driven airhead when the man turned on his power.

And that little show he'd given her, performing it on someone else right in front of her with little to no attention paid to her? Yeah, that kinda meant she could focus on what he did without fear of outing herself.

He focused his power on the person, and used it to lull them into a hypnotic state (kinda; it was more like he was eliminating their inhibitions. So . . . alcohol on steroids?), using his eyes as the focus (window to the soul and all that). Then he pulled,  _hard,_ on their desire, but kept it focused internally rather than directing it at something in particular. And as the final step, he used his words as a focus, to make sure that they didn't just turn into a babbling mess, confessing everything they'd ever wanted.

She knew what desire looked like, just from walking around. That kid who so desperately wanted the bike, or this woman and that jacket, or that guy and those shoes - that was externally focused  _desire-want-greed._ This was all internal, and he shaped it with his words, narrowing that focus to something a bit more specific rather than just anything they've ever wanted. And for the complicated ones, as he had said while eyeing her with a disquieting amount of intensity, he would then use his energy as both a lasso, to make them focused on him and harder to resist without other distractions, and would kinda . . . flick things off upstairs.

It was hard to explain. Not only because she was going on what she was  _feeling_ with a sense that wasn't really a sense at all, but because she didn't really understand how he was doing it. She guessed that he was flicking switches in their heads, turning things off - modesty, appearance, hell, pretty much all filters. But she didn't know. And the eye contact thing was both to lower their inhibitions and to make it seem like they were the only people there. Because Dr Martin wouldn't have said even a word about her sexual preferences, let alone that she was into, quote, 'hot yoga' if she'd had even an inkling that Chloe was in the room.

(Hot yoga. What the fuck.)

And that leaves marks. She would always know if he had done it to someone; the strands of his power had tugged at the other person's energy, and that sort of thing takes time to be restored. Just like pouring batter into a tin right before it goes into the oven; eventually it evens out, but you can see exactly where everything was at the beginning. (She's getting hungry. She only ever starts thinking in fucking  _food analogies_ when she's hungry.)

But she could see the energy, could feel him tugging on her desire.  
And she could counter him every step of the way.  
So his grand trick, the never fail? Yeah, it was sinking like the Titanic had.

Whoops.

* * *

When Chloe first saw her daughter with Lucifer, she was terrified.

Very quietly terrified, yeah, not a word was said about it. But still - terrified.

This was a man who had admitted to disliking children, who seemed to scorn their very presence - and her daughter was watching him with quiet awe.

Her internal dialogue at that stage would have given a sensor a coronary.

When they get outside the school (after he'd done  _something_ to that little shit who was bothering Trixie) things get both better and worse. Dan is here. Trixie is practically clinging to a man she met not even an hour ago. Lucifer is getting right on Dan's nerves. (She knows it should be clear cut which of these are good and bad, but it's  _really_ not with all the different layers she has happening. Her ability, Trixie's possible ability, Lucifer's status as undying Lord of Hell, Dan's status as ex-partner and Trixie's dad  _plus_ her former de facto partner - yeah, that muddies the lines a little.) And then there's the very definitely bad bits - hooker names ( _why,_ oh why, does she have to explain hookers, and the associated stigma of having sex for money plus maybe the whole gender bias in this fricking society just to top it all off to a seven year old?), Dan being late ( _again,_ for the thousandth time), Dan giving her shit for doing her effing job (sometimes she wants to shoot him so badly she should get a medal for not doing so).

But thinking about it afterwards - post-Doctor Linda Martin, post-Cooper couple break down, pre-bar time discussion/epiphany - it was actually kinda reassuring.

Her daughter, who was far more empathetic then she was, clearly had no reservations about getting close to him.

So for all that he proclaimed his undying revulsion and disgust about children, he clearly hadn't been feeling it. If anything, he was probably feeling lonely; it would explain why Trixie had been so taken with him - her innate desire to help brought to the fore by this man, who believed what she said without needing clear cut evidence and who was funny and talked  _to_  her and not  _down_  to her? She would not be surprised if he became her first crush with all of that.

It had given her pause.

She had been judging him based on how he was presenting himself and what little she remembered of him from the Bible.

Which was dumb as shit to do so and made her want to kick herself.

A book written hundreds of years ago? Yeah,  _that's_ going to be accurate on someone who has lived thousands of years. (Some time, she is going to post the idea anonymously online that someone should make a second edition of the Bible. After all, academic textbooks were in like their fourth and fifth edition, and those books had been around for decades at most. The Bible desperately needed a revision and reissuing. And the fallout if it really got going on the internet?  _Hilarious._ )

And the way he was presenting himself . . . She should be slapping herself, she really should. Her own mother had spent literal years teaching her about that - and she was still judging him based on that?

Actually, she could be being a bit too harsh on herself. Maybe. Really, she had no absolute guarantee that Morningstar didn't have other powers or abilities. Maybe his charisma, his  _charm_  was more than just innate (God given, that smirking fucker) skills honed over thousands of years: maybe they were boosted by a supernatural skill.

Or maybe she was reaching because she didn't want to admit that she was acting like every other idiot in this world and making decisions based on what she was shown not what was there to see.

Why did all this ability shit give her so many headaches?

* * *

She thinks she might have liked Delilah. She was clearly a woman who had talent and went after her goals - it wasn't easy making it in the business, no matter if you had talent and had been given a leg up at the beginning by someone with connections. Sure, she'd fucked it up a bit - drugs, public nudity, and ditching her fiancée at the altar doesn't lead to the good sort of headlines - but from the tributes that were showing up left and right, the girl had been bright and charming and self-aware enough to know she wasn't the be-all and end-all of everything. And if she could trust Lucifer, then the girl had started getting her shit together and getting her life back on track.

So smart, sensible, driven, and self-aware. She would have liked to have gotten to know her. Even if she did have truly terrible taste in men.

(Plus that pseudonym?  _Beautiful._ Penny Lane; what a clever little music reference to stick in there. Paying tribute to a favourite of her own without tipping anyone off; lovely.)

* * *

Confronting that scumbag Jimmy Barnes didn't really go to plan.

For one thing, the guy had a gun. For an on the out record producer who had never worked with a rapper, this was unusual. For a white guy who lived in LA and had only ever had a parking fine, that was a neon sign screaming, 'I am guilty!'.

Taking a member of the boy band hostage certainly put paid to even the faintest possibility of innocence.

"Back off right now, you freak, or she won't be the only one who ends up dead!" Barnes' eyes are set on Lucifer, ignoring the woman holding a gun on him to focus on the unarmed man walking towards him. Wait-

"Lucifer! Stay back!"

"It's fine, Detective! I'm immortal, remember?" He keeps walking forward, eyes set on the man in front of him. She's a little bit relieved she can't see his face right now. Barnes is terrified, breath coming in short pants. What had she been thinking about? Immortal isn't invulnerable, so-

"I will put a bullet in him, don't think I won't!" The kid is shaking, _fearterrorshockhelplessnessanger_ radiating off him. It's partially obscuring Barnes, but she can still get the acrid tang of  _angerfeardetermination_  wafting off him clearly enough.

Lucifer isn't backing off, he's still stalking towards the man, calmly saying threats all the while. (If this was any other time, she would be backing the fuck away from him. She wasn't getting anything other than rage off him and he was controlling and restraining himself enough to just say what he wanted to do? When he let loose he would be  _terrifying_.) Barnes is so focused on him that the kid gets loose, and Barnes is just that mesmerised by the man approaching him (like a snake charmer) to not have the presence of mind to grab the kid and have a bit of leverage.

Barnes' feelings crystallise into determination, and he swings his gun up to shoot-

_Bang!_

Her bullet takes him through the shoulder. Chloe approaches the downed man, blood flowing from his shoulder, making sure to keep her gun on him at all times. He may look unconscious, and he may well even be near to it, but his emotions aren't there and that's never been wrong before.

"Why did you do that?!" He's lost some of that tight control on his emotions; the finish line has moved and he has lost some of that restraint. That she was the one who did it is probably the only reason that he is even slightly hanging on to his temper. (She doesn't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing that they're the only ones left in the studio other than Barnes. On the one hand, there will be no other witnesses if he starts going . . . more than human. On the other hand, that means there is no one that he has to restrain himself for.)

"He was going to  _shoot_ you; forgive me for wanting to avoid that!" Her voice is sharp, her flickering between the downed Barnes and the incensed fallen angel. Barnes still isn't fully in La La Land, and he's got to be in a lot of pain, but that doesn't mean that he would be compliant once she cuffed him.

"It wouldn't have even made me bleed, let alone kill me! Why-"

_Fuck, why is her shoulder-_

* * *

Barnes wasn't completely down for the count. And that gun of his hadn't been out of reach when he came back to it and saw a cop standing right in front of him, cuffs dangling from one hand. And when Lucifer had distracted her, and her attention had shifted off the murderous asshole to the yelling asshole, he had taken the chance offered and shot her in the left shoulder.

She was fortunate that he was barely able to operate a gun and was about as far as you can get from a crack marksman whilst still having 'gun' in the same sentence. She might not have been on guard, but that hadn't stopped her from being able to kick that gun out of his hand. Admittedly, she'd had to rely on Lucifer to subdue him after that - she'd been woozy and in a lot of pain, and was in no shape to be physically restraining a person.

He had managed to hit her shoulder, but it had been on an angle and had glanced off her collarbone. (She guessed. The level of pain certainly indicated that, as well as the bleeding, but her x-ray vision was still on the fritz, so she couldn't say with one-hundred percent certainty.) It had scraped deep enough for her to bleed, but the pain was only enough to make her go  _fuck that shit._ The muscles were not pleased about the whole thing, and were going to be a bitch with physiotherapy, she just knew it.

Barnes was flat on his front, groaning in pain. 

More importantly- "You should leave, Detective. I've a very serious discussion to finally have." Lucifer is staring at Barnes, and there is nothing on his face. His emotions aren't giving her much either, too tightly leashed and still so very stifled for her to be able to really know what he's feeling. His energy, on the other hand, is pulsing around his head and hands in a way that makes her think of fire, greedy, ever-grasping fire. It's not a good sign.

"Lucifer." Her use of his first name doesn't really stop him from where he is glaring down at Barnes, but he's clearly listening. "The man is a person, and will face justice. If you try and . . . punish him, then I'd have to arrest you too." This is a hard one; how to phrase it correctly so that the words hit home without saying 'I believe you really are the Devil'. Well, she  _could_ give the game away, but she's enjoying having one over him. And if she can't quite hit the right notes- she's hardly going to sob herself to sleep over the loss of Jimmy Barnes. I mean,  _preferably_ he'd face the mortal/human justice system, but she's not that picky, especially with his having  _shot_ at her and tried to hold an innocent hostage. Ineptly, yeah, but still.

"Oh, I really don't think you could, Detective, especially with the state you're in now." But despite his words, he's backing down. Thank fuck. She prefers to not have to lie to her fellow cops if she can, and she would've had to do a fair number of lies to get out of this one without either of them arrested or called crazy. (Though that second one is probably a lost cause to most people who've met Lucifer.)

"Oh, you'd be surprised what I could do, Morningstar." She retorted, keeping a careful eye on Barnes. For all that she and Lucifer had made their peace, that didn't mean Jimmy Barnes wasn't a desperate and conniving little rat bastard who would do whatever it took to avoid his punishment - supernatural or otherwise.

"Well, I just might have to find out then!" Aaand he's back to cheery again. Well that was-

"Wait, what do you mean?"

She can see in her peripheral vision that he's smiling that shark smile of his, the one that always says to her 'I've got you now and there's nothing you can do'. "Oh, come now Detective. This is the beginning of a beautiful partnership! Look at how well we've worked together to nab this miscreant!" There's a careless kick at Barnes. She very carefully doesn't see whether it hits and where it might have hit. Judging by the whimper of pain, she suspects somewhere painful. "And besides, Detective-"

He's standing right in front of her now, conveniently not blocking her view of Barnes but still managing to look her right in the eye. His energy isn't doing anything, but she still feels as though he's trying to hypnotise her. "-how else am I to figure you out?"

 _Damn damn damn damn damn fuckity fuckity fuck fuck fuck._ "Figure me out?" She tries a laugh, almost hitting genuine-sounding territory. And, going by the way his eyes are still locked on her, he knows it. "Morningstar, I am a full-time Detective with the LAPD who is also the full-time caregiver to a seven year old daughter. There isn't much about me that is hidden."

It's a lie. A well-worn lie, an easy one that trips off her tongue so well it might as well be the truth, but it's still a lie. Morningstar's eyes have sparkled, saying he either knew it, could guess it, or . . . could he sense lies?

"Now that is exactly where you are wrong, Detective," He's smouldering at her. For the first time, she really can't tell if it's purposeful or not. "And I'm going to find out just  _how_ wrong you are."

Okay, now is clearly the time to get out of there before he makes anymore creepy promises that are starting to sound like a pledge to stalk her. "Okay, now is really not the time for that. I'm bleeding, Barnes is still here, and assuming my backup has arrived then they are still outside waiting for the winner from our own little showdown to pop outside. So-"

"Well clearly you should go outside, Detective." He interrupts her so smoothly she barely notices. If she was one of his enamoured followers, she certainly wouldn't have. But she did, so she adds that to the small list (and she has the distinct feeling that it's going to grow) entitled "Why I am continuing to fuck with Lucifer Morningstar". It's a good name, though she should probably shorten it a bit. "You need to have that arm seen to, and I can definitely restrain our . . ." He pauses, trying to find a word reprehensible enough to describe Barnes without swearing. She guessed it was either a hang-up about profanity, or he disliked resorting to something so 'plebian'.

"Cold-blooded, greedy, selfish and heartless murderer?" She suggests. Oh, what do you know, she's starting to sway. Fuck, the adrenaline's wearing off and the pain's kicking in full blast.  _This is going to be a bitch to deal with._

He's happy enough with it, or he's that keen to get what punishment in that he can. "I suppose. Off you go, Detective! Chop chop!" She rolls her eyes but complies. Blood isn't gushing out of her, but she knows she's lost a bit. And she's hardly a big woman, so even a bit can make a difference. Still, she hesitates near the door to the sound booth.

"Lucifer . . ." Phrasing is going to be important. She is a police officer, and someone with a heart, and she knows he's telling the truth, and she's got her secret. Her words cannot be off here, or he'll  _know_ she's more than what she claims and she does not need that kind of attention from the big bad Devil. "Police officers are going to be in here within five minutes. I can't say with certainty how badly injured Barnes is right now, but I know he's not in danger of dying. Make sure he doesn't escape his rightful punishment, would you? I mean-" Shit, she's babbling, and that's not a good thing, but it might sell her as being a fairly morally upright officer who isn't entirely comfortable with revenge/vigilante justice. "-If he managed to get loose and was shot by police evading custody then he wouldn't get the joy of years and years locked in a concrete box hoping he won't end up on Death Row, you know?"

There. She's pretty sure that worked. Sure, Morningstar's looking at her as though he's never seen anyone quite like her, but her priority right now is for Barnes to get into custody alive. A live suspect whose confessed everything is much better for her rep than a dead one whose corpse is telling the story of police brutality for anyone who cared to look. Never mind that it wouldn't be her and that she got shot, if some bright young lawyer looking to make a name for themselves started pushing that point, she'd probably go down like a sinking ship. And she could hardly see Morningstar sticking his neck out for her. Really, for all his bluntness about being the Devil, he doesn't seem that interested in publicising it. He could have-

"Detective? Are you still in there?" Shit. Chloe blinks, and Lucifer is standing only a few feet away. She's swayed herself into leaning against the wall, something she doesn't remember happening.

"I'm here. Sorry, my thoughts wandered and I didn't rein them in." Truth. Completely and utterly true, but so very unhelpful. Still, Lucifer's satisfied enough to walk back over to Barnes, tossing an airy "I suggest medical attention," over his shoulder as he goes, energy going back to that fire state yet somehow more tamed; leashed, perhaps.

She takes the hint and gets the hell out of dodge. Ain't no way she's gonna be there when the Devil goes to work.

* * *

After that, she thinks she's shot of Lucifer. Delilah's true murderer has been caught, justice has been served, and Morningstar can go back to his life of clubbing and sleeping with people without sparing a thought for her.

She doesn't quite get that.

Because, somehow, the man has sent a bouquet of flowers to her house. And how he got that address is a mystery that she kinda-really-definitely  _needs_ to know the answer to.

Sunflowers. That's what he sent. Nothing cliché like red roses, or a colourful bouquet intended to show off how much money he's spent. Just . . . lovely, bright and beautiful sunflowers.

And that bugs her. I mean, the card doesn't help, but going to that much effort? He's not going to just let her slip out of his net now.

_Well, if I can't get free I may as well continue to screw with his head. Time to make a plan._

Thank fuck she's got time off because of her injury; it'll let her take care of the paperwork  _and_ format a proper plan to deal with him. Note to self: arrange a skype call with Mom for planning purposes.

* * *

She doesn't tell Trixie the full story. Most of it, yeah, and in terms that she can understand, but there ain't no way she's laying that on her daughter. She tells her that bit too.

"Sweetie, I'm going to tell you what I can about what happened, okay? Some of it is stuff that you can't really understand yet - it's not about how smart you are, honey, because I know you're very smart, but about experience and getting old and boring like me, okay?"

Trixie was cuddled up against her right side, looking up at her with those big eyes of hers and the sweetest little pout on her face. She had given a nod, then gone right back to looking expectantly at her.

"Okay, so while I was working this case, I met Lucifer." Trixie had perked up there, clearly about two seconds from babbling about the man. Angel. Devil. (She'll stick to man, it's easier on her poor head.) "And I wanted to know what you think of him."

"He's really funny and cool and nice and he helped me when that girl was bullying me and wouldn't stop and-" She'd paused there, something tumbling loose in her head that nearly stopped the deluge of words cold. "And I think he's really lonely too, Mommy."

 _Oh, screw being grown up and mature._ Her little girl is sad, and she's getting hugged. "And what makes you say that, sweetie?"

Trixie screws her face up in concentration, trying to find the right words. "It's, it's, it's . . . It's like how I know sometimes when you're tired, Mommy, or when Daddy doesn't really want to do a tea party with me and Barbie." She shakes her head stubbornly, narrowly avoiding whacking Chloe with her hair. "I can just _feel_ it."

 _Well, that a confirmation for her then._ "Trixie babe, what else can you feel from Lucifer?" Because she might not be able to get much off him, but Trixie's empathy far outstrips hers, even as young as she is. Very resolutely, she did not think of this as exploiting her child. She was helping her train, and if there were some fringe benefits to it, then so be it.

"He's angry a bit, like,  _always_ at least a little bit angry. And he can feel kinda . . . naughty, sometimes? It's . . ." She shrugs helplessly, not really sure how to put it.

Fair enough. It was hardly fair of Chloe to start testing her with her first subject being an angel. "I get it, sweetie. Well, there's something you need to know about Lucifer,"

Oh God. How was she going to put this? How do you explain to your seven year old that she should trust her gut despite all the bad things that have been said about the man for literal centuries at a time? Well, here goes nothing.

"When Lucifer was helping me on the case, he told me something that I think you should know, because I get the feeling that-"  _That what? Think think think-_ "-he wants to be friends with you, and this is a really important thing for you to know."  _First hurdle down._ "You know how Lucifer feels different?" An obedient nod, with Trixie still peering intently at her. "Well that's because he's . . . Not human."  _Don't wince, keep watching her, don't show how that screws with you- shit feel calmcalmzenrelaxed._ "Lucifer was born an angel, and became the Devil." _Compartmentalise right the fuck now. You're focused on Trixie, not on your own impending mental breakdown over the existence of the divine and the unholy._

"You mean like, the Bible Devil?" Head tipped to one side, still staring at her with those bright eyes. And there isn't a hint of condemnation or disbelief on her face, not even a smidgeon of disgust.

"Yes, sweetie, though you should know that the Bible was written so long ago that even Grandma wasn't alive then, and that Lucifer has lived for a long time since that happened. And you remember how he felt, yeah? I think he's probably been feeling like that for a long time."

Trixie mulls that over for a long time. Her poker face is quite impressive. All she can see is that she's thinking hard about something - and all she can feel is that she's thinking hard but feeling hopeful.

Finally, she gives a decisive nod. She's always so certain and sure, and Chloe hopes that her daughter always has such faith in herself. Hell knows that she seems to second-guess and overthink everything these days, paranoid about even a hint of her abilities coming out. "He's still Lucifer," she declares almost proudly. "And he's always been nice to me, and he wants to be my friend, and I want to be his friend, and I think he really needs lots of hugs, Mommy, 'cause he does feel  _super_ lonely."

Oh, she is proud of her daughter. So, so proud. (And maybe slightly dependent on her, but shush.)

"Well, when he next comes around you can make sure to give him one, hm?" His face would be hilarious. She had no issues with letting this play out, because she did agree with Trixie, plus it might just stop his brain. Win-win right there.

She was going to be ready for Lucifer Morningstar, and she was not going to let her daughter get caught unawares and unprepared. She was going to be thrust into something she wasn't really sure she was ready for. She was going to screw with his head and make sure that she learnt as much as she could. Because there was no way that she wasn't getting something out of this, just like there was no way her daughter was going to get hurt because of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have to say, had about 50% of this chapter sitting as a draft for, like, 5 months. And it didn't progress since that, both because the muse was stone-walling me and I had uni exams, shifts, and real life shit happening. So, to all those who have bookmarked and subscribed and kudos'd this work, thank you. Both for letting me know what you think, and for putting up with the stupidly long break between chapters. That said, I'm going to try to stick with a more regular updating schedule, but no guarantees.
> 
> Hope that the (for me) super long chapter makes up a bit of it :) (Also, the chapters are going to continue being pretty lengthy since I'll be trying to incorporate the episodes/cases into it. But there's still going to be glossing over, so you've been warned.)
> 
> In case it hasn't been made clear: I am not American. I do not work with law enforcement. What I'm putting in here is my own interpretation of what's been shown in the series 'Lucifer', flavoured heavily with the various books, movies, and television shows that I've watched over the years that have featured the police in some capacity. For all I know, the IA is actually a shadow organisation that is slowly becoming akin to the Illuminati in policing circles. So I have no clue if she really would have had maternity leave with them, or if that was regulation, or pretty much anything related to the details.
> 
> I'd, frankly, be amazed if this was even 50% accurate/realistic. So don't expect me to cite you sources or anything.
> 
> Addendum: Chapter edited 20/02/17:  
> Minor edits from things that were revealed in canon after chapter was posted. Minor grammar/spelling corrections done as well.


	6. Relativity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Season 1, Episode 2 - 'Lucifer, Stay. Good Devil'.
> 
> (Just, y'know, rewritten through the lens of my AU universe.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you haven't gotten it by now, then I'll spell it out for you: this is AU. There will be differences. There are going to be more differences as we go along, because as much as this Chloe loves to troll Lucifer, she's not going to take it so far that people get hurt. (Except maybe for the whole shooting-him thing. Because he does so delight in being annoying.)
> 
> Also, a massive thank you to Abe - you are a wonderful person, and thank you so much for your encouraging words; it's kickstarted the old muse a couple of times by rereading them :)

She was at Lux, searching for a particular face as best she can whilst simultaneously hiding in a corner booth.

She probably shouldn't be here, but hey - she has her reasons. And they were even pretty good reasons. Like, 'Why the hell did you send me a bunch of sunflowers?' and 'What the fuck did you mean by that note, you bastard?'

Good reasons.

And it had nothing to do with the fact that she had been busy as anything this week between Trixie (who had, for whatever reason, decided that parkour would be her next goal, and had then proceeded to emulate it at _any_ possible opportunity. This did, apparently, include getting from her room to the dinner table.), work (as incessant as ever), Dan (who seemed to think that she wanted him back in her bed and was going to romance her as best he could to make it happen. So he had taken to hanging around as much as possible, bringing her coffee, and hitting her with that little smile he seemed to reserve just for her-  _no,_ don't go there. You've already fucked him up with your draining. There ain't no way you're getting back together with the man) and trying to keep up with her abilities.

She was nearly at the end of her tether.

And that the lighthouse kept creeping into her thoughts was  _not helping._

So she had decided to kill two birds with one stone: she'd investigate a bit more into the lighthouse and refuel on the clubgoers, both emotion and energy wise.

And in a club that is stuffed with attractive young things relishing their youth and invincibility - she didn't even have to reach with her ability. It just drifted to her as they twirled past, bringing with it an intoxicating mix of  _excitementjoyhappinesslust._

She rarely went to clubs when she was younger because she knew that it would be so very easy to get addicted to those feelings. But she's older and much more run down, not to mention that her duties (her daughter, her family, her job) keep her too anchored to succumb to the siren call of eternal good times.

A drink appears in front of her, clear liquid in a cocktail glass complete with olive on a stick. "Oh, no, I didn't-" _Bonfire right beside her, tendrils an inch away from probing her own energy_ "-order this."

"Courtesy of the owner." The woman holding the drink smiles at her, managing to combine smouldering sensuality with the feminine, false smile she saw so often back at high school. Added to the clinging black leather outfit over her lithely muscled body, Chloe could tell that this was a strong woman who got her way every time - one way or another.

"Lucifer sent me a drink?"  _She doesn't know, she doesn't know, you're an oblivious mortal who knows nothing, get information if you can but don't blow your cover._ "That was . . . generous of him."

"Hm." She gets a once over for her tepid reaction. But her sight tells her a different story; this woman is more on edge than before by her non-reaction to Lucifer. Evidently, she was expecting her to be salivating over the man like every other woman seemed to do; that she wasn't was throwing her off and making her that much more wary.

And just to make things that much more difficult, she seems intent on sussing out her game. Well, it takes two to tango. "So how long have you known Lucifer?"

The woman seems to take it as an invitation to sit down, sprawling out on the other side of the table and managing to look like a barely leashed panther. "Far longer then you can possibly comprehend."

 _Okay, put a nice big tick in the 'not human' box. Not that that's a surprise with the amount of energy she's putting off. Plus her emotions are all screwy too._ It seems she's discovered away to figure out who is and isn't human: are their emotions fucked up, and are they putting off enough energy to power a city block. Yes and yes - ding ding ding! You've got yourself a supernatural being! Hooray!

"So.  _You're_ the Detective." That arch once over again, with a hint of curiosity lurking in her emotions. "What makes you so special?" the way the woman cocks her head would be adorable on Trixie. On her, it looks like she's measuring her for a coffin. Sans head.

"Oh, I'm nothing special." Chloe scoffs easily,  _truthfully,_ and swiftly changes the subject. "I'm sorry, I didn't introduce myself earlier; Detective Chloe Decker." She holds out her hand to shake, determined to keep up the illusion that she's another oblivious mortal.

"Mazikeen, Lucifer's most trusted." Chloe's hand gets a brief flicker of eyes, and nothing else.

"Mazikeen, huh? Now that is a name I haven't heard before. What's the origin of it?" Trying to keep a conversation going with this woman was like trying to push a boulder up a hill. Appearing oblivious, in contrast, was like trying to get a kid to eat broccoli.

"It is the name that I was granted on reaching my majority." When Chloe's expectant look doesn't abate, Mazikeen nearly snarled at her, but after quick look at Lucifer - whose attention may not be on them what with his tinkling the ivories, but is easily within hearing range if something, uh, _untoward_ were to occur - she concedes with, "It means 'the screaming abyss'." She bares her teeth, something animalistic in her movements as she stands up to loom over Chloe. "Call me Maze,  _Detective;_ I shall not be true-called by the likes of you, yet another-"

"Ah, Maze!" Lucifer interrupts, managing to, somehow, get the woman away from where Chloe had unconsciously been leaning back and himself in between the two without even a wobble. "Get me a nice whiskey, would you? All this entertaining is making me thirsty, and a drink is just the place to start," There's a grin on his face, and his eyes are sparkling with what could be called joy - but his emotions are much more foreboding ( _annoyanceangercontempt_ ) and his energy is starting to flow down towards his hands, giving him glowing gauntlets that would not be out of place on a Wonder Woman cosplayer.

Maze gives a stiff nod to the man, her face blank once more as she turns on her heel to go to the bar, not even sparing a glance at Chloe as she does so.

"I get the feeling that she doesn't like me," Chloe floated casually, eyeing Lucifer as he slipped into where Maze had been sitting.

"Oh, Maze doesn't like anyone; don't take it personally," He grinned back at her, unnatural intensity making his eyes too bright to pass for entirely human with her vision. "Now then, Detective; how's your little spying trip going, hm?" He gazed at her smugly, satisfaction in every line of his body.

"I'm not here to spy on you, Morningstar. I'm here to ask you a question," Purposefully, Chloe keeps her voice calm and reasonable - well, as much as the music will allow.

Intrigued, Lucifer arches an eyebrow, sliding around the booth so that he's nearly pressed up against her side. "Oh? Go ahead - but I must insist on asking one of my own. After all, we wouldn't want to be unfair, now would we?" He's winking at her, smiling like they're the only people that know a juicy secret.

"Fair is fair," Chloe agrees cautiously, eyeing the man with barely hidden trepidation. "So: why did you send me flowers and that note?" By sheer force of habit, she manages to keep her voice calm and detached. Which is made a lot more difficult when his energy is increasingly teasing her own, coming closer to poke it before running away like a shy rabbit. And she  _can't react._

"I thought that was the done thing when someone is in hospital! You send flowers and a note to let them know you're thinking of them - it makes them happier and helps them to heal faster. Or so I've been told, leastways."

 _Truth._  Not full truth, but still truth."But why did you send that particular  _message,_ Lucifer?" She grits out, just  _knowing_ the man is purposefully being obtuse.

"Ah ah ah, Detective," He chides, holding up a finger as he sips nonchalantly on his silently appearing drink, looking like he was enjoying this whole experience enormously. "You've had your turn to ask a question, and now it is mine. Quid pro quo, you know." He winks then, looking so smug and self-assured that she is very tempted to dump his drink in his hair.

Smirking, he asks her, "Do you want to have sex with me?"

Chloe classes it as massive personal growth that she doesn't punch him. The last person who so bluntly assumed she was into him (after all, he was into her, so she  _must_ be interested in him, right?) had gotten a knee to the balls. So this is a great step forward for her, it really is.

That her mouth has fallen open isn't important in the least.

"No."

There. Done, dusted, and true. She genuinely isn't interested in sex with the man, no matter what  _he_ thinks, and doubts that she ever will.

Sure, he's physically attractive, and she can't help but admire a bit the way he is pulling such a massive scam on, basically, all of humankind, but there ain't no way she would ever get that involved with a lighthouse. That is way, way, out of her league. Actually, that's not entirely right; she's playing baseball while he's playing cricket: two games that have the same basic components but do it completely differently.

Lucifer, on the other hand, has dropped that carefree expression of his and seems to be trying to see her soul through her eyes. Chloe, tempted though she so very much is, does not ask a sarcastic question ("What, do you need a map because you got lost in my eyes?") knowing full well that he'd seize the opportunity to get a freebee question of his own.

As it is- "What was your reasoning behind sending me a note with that particular message on it?" Her voice is cool and calm, her face equally so. She can do this. (" _Give them what they think they want and never what they need, darling."_ )

"I was thinking that it was true, and needed to be said, of course. You humans always seem to need everything spelled out for you, so I decided to oblige you. After all, Detective," He grins sharply at her, still not entirely hidden behind his own mask of glib ladies' man, "You had been  _particularly_ helpful with that louse, Barnes, so I felt like- what's the phrase," He pauses, whiskey swirling slightly in his glass as he unerringly seeks her out for eye contact.

Chloe stills. It is the stillness of prey before a predator.

There is no smile on Lucifer's face. "Debts must be paid."

_What the hell does he mean by that? Does he think that I owe him? Or the other way around? Or something else entirely?_

"Well, they wouldn't be debts otherwise," Chloe tries to shrug off his strange intensity with a (weak, admittedly) joke and chuckle combination. It doesn't seem to have worked.

"How very right you are, Detective," He drawls, eyes still glued to her.  _Okay, now it's getting into creepy territory._ "And, for my next question-" He leans in suddenly, mere inches all that is between them right now, "Why don't I affect you, Detective? What makes you different?"

"You want to clarify that, Lucifer? Because, astoundingly, that sounded like two questions to me, not one," Chloe shot back, barely acknowledging the little voice inside her screaming that it was a terrible, terrible idea to be sassing this man.

Lucifer frowned, eyes still puzzled. "See, that's the thing, Detective. I'm beginning to get-"

 _Dring dring!_ Her phone trilled and vibrated at the same time, startling her into looking away from Lucifer and neatly interrupting him before he could start putting any pieces together. She gave him a polite, empty smile as she grabbed her phone. Her  _work_ phone.

"Decker here. What do you need?"

"Chloe, there's a case for you. Assuming that-"

It's Dan. Jesus, won't the man give her some space? "My shoulder is fine, as you well know when I told you so yesterday." Her face remains unchanged, her tone is that of a serenely poised businesswoman, and even her phrasing shouldn't be ringing any bells. Dan, however, knows her, so he moves on swiftly to the meat of this conversation.

"Right, right. Okay, here's what we know so far: there's a dead kid in the car, slumped behind the wheel."

There is way too much tension in his voice for that to be it. ". . . And?"

"Well-" Oh, Dan is relishing this right now, " _And_ Nick Hofmeister is the only other person there, and he's proclaiming that it's his fault."

Chloe straightens up abruptly, eyes narrowed and fierce, jaw unconsciously clenched. "That cockroach is there? Who else is?" She barks sharply, unable to fully rein it in.

(She  _loathes_ Nick. She may not have met him for more than a minute at a time since her father's funeral, but what she felt then - _gleeguiltpridegreed -_ was plenty enough for her. She had absolutely no hesitation in ripping him a new one after his camera had been, uh,  _taken care of._ Said words had been more vitriol than words, and she had made sure that it would stick when she practically threw her emotions at him. It was lucky she had been so run down then, because she had both been screaming her outrage at him and retaining maybe one percent of the decorum her mother had forced into her - so Nick had, likely, chalked up his sudden understanding of her point of view to that, rather than her shoving how shit everything was for her right then (emotionally, anyways) - into his head. That he had continued, for years after that, to practically stalk celebrities - people in their own right, with the already intensive media exposure that has burned more than one incautious soul - so as to document their personal mishaps in as much detail as possible - meant that she was more likely to spit on the man than help him.)

(Also, it pissed her off to no end that he had continually managed to weasel his way out of lawsuits and cases that would result in jail time. He was  _using_ the system for his own benefit when he had done  _nothing_ that was worth celebrating or even  _acknowledging._ She  _hated_ him, this jackal who had made one of the worst days in her life so much  _worse_.)

This hasn't slipped past Lucifer. He's leaning back, eyes flicking from her face to her phone, just staring at her like she is something to solve and he's determined to do it.  _Hopefully, he was never one of those people that thinks you have to break something to understand it._

 "I'm sorry Lucifer, but I have to go - the job, you know." A small, swift, and wholly insincere smile rounds out that rote sentence, and Chloe is half way to the exit by the time he has gotten over himself enough to stand up and call her name.

But she knows that won't be the last time she sees him.

A deal with the Devil is one that you don't renege on - and she hasn't entirely held up her end of the bargain yet.

He's going to come calling, if only because he refuses to be short changed in a deal.

Well, she'll just have to come up with a true/not-true answer for him beforehand.

* * *

 Still: at least she isn't bored anymore.

* * *

Lucifer Morningstar, whatever else he was, could be a complete asshole if whatever was happening didn't concern him personally.

Case in point . . .

"You followed me to a crime scene because you want to know why I was affected by getting that call?" Chloe is rather surprised she doesn't start shrieking at the bastard. That is some primetime ice cold assholery happening right there in front of her.

The fucker doesn't even look vaguely ashamed. "Well, yes Detective. I want to know what makes you tick, why you are so unaffected by me - my ability-" Chloe is rather proud that she doesn't flinch, even with Lucifer's eyes boring into her looking for a single tell, "- and my extraordinary good looks. It's practically unique, Detective, and I'm really quite fascinated."

Okay. Okay. She was expecting this to happen. Jesus, she'd _planned_ for this to happen. Maybe it was happening at a really bad time (childhood trauma making a comeback, hooray) but she could deal with this. She'd known that showing up at his club to ask him about those flowers and that fricking note would get a reaction; it was just poor timing that meant that he had now followed her ( _like a lonely little lost puppy,_ something mean snidely whispered inside her) to a crime scene which she  _had not_ prepared for.

Chloe blinks. Slowly. Then remembers her persona, her motivation, and her job. "You cannot be at a  _crime scene,_ Lucifer. There is a legal investigation happening here and you could impede or even-"

"Blah blah blah, Detective." He doesn't go so far as to do the whole 'hand imitating talking mouth' thing, but she would bet good money that he would have were he any less conscious of his appearance. "Do you ever get bored talking about procedures all the time? Because I certainly get bored listening to you do so." And then he walks past her, as though she's unimportant and not worth bothering with, and goes to approach the car with poor Robbie Russel Junior still lying there, albeit with a sheet over him.

Hell. No.

Chloe doesn't think; she's running on annoyance and anger and fear and she is more instinct than reasoning right now. She grabs his wrist and  _pulls._

_Shit._

Because she didn't get his energy, not even a single strand. She tugged it towards her, certainly, and now that they're skin to skin she has a much better grasp of what few emotions he is feeling.

But all she's done is catch his attention in a manner she  _really_ didn't want.

Because Lucifer Morningstar is looking at her as though she is something fascinating and he couldn't get enough of her if he wanted to, like he wants to know every bit of her, like she confuses him and amazes him at the same time. If she didn't know what he was and what he was literally feeling, she'd have thought that he just wanted to fuck her through a bed right now.

_Bluff. You're just an ordinary, average human - bluff with everything you know._

"You  _cannot_ go in there, Lucifer," Her voice cracks a little bit, but she could pass it off as being emotionally compromised by the case. It wouldn't even be that hard, really - talk about her own childhood, maybe throw in a sob story about someone from school, and bam. If she really felt like piling it on, she could even talk about how that could have been her, and then pull out the big guns and talk about Trixie.

"You just get more fascinating the more I get to know you, Detective," He's smirking at her, eyes darting between her face, his grasped wrist, and her chest. She'd be offended by that last one if she didn't know that was where most people's energy was stored.

(Most. She tried to spread hers throughout her body. She theorised that it would help her heal faster in those places, as well as putting less stress on her heart. She probably wouldn't ever know for sure, but that seemed to be her lot in life.)

"Okay, well, creepy as that sounds, you still can't go in there." A smaller tug on his energy, making sure not to so much as twitch a muscle otherwise. It's reckless, and counterintuitive to her goal, but it's suddenly become imperative to her that he doesn't go into the crime scene. And, like she said, she's running on instinct right now.

"Well then, Detective, I'm sure you wouldn't mind if I had a few words with the man currently in the - how do you people put it? - the 'paddy wagon'." His British accent mocks her, but she's so off balance that she doesn't even have time to blink before he's freed himself and started sauntering purposefully over to where fucking Nick Hofmeister is sitting in the back of a police car.

She's more than a little tempted to go over there to stop the two of them interacting, but she's got her job to do. And Nick is a big boy, and she doesn't care particularly what happens to that shithead.

* * *

"Why hello, dungbeetle," Lucifer smirks, grinning down at the man looking at him with a sense of 'what the fuck' practically rolling off him. "So: why did you do it, hmm?" Hauling the man up from out of the car had been easy. Too easy, really, and why wasn't the man resisting more?

"It was an accident," the scum blurts out, eyes darting over his shoulder. Lucifer doesn't know whether to be annoyed or surprised. Ignoring him, yes, but admitting to it without even a pretence of trying to throw blame? That was very unusual for those of the criminal persuasion caught in the act, and Lucifer would know: he's had millennia observing the selfish scum.

"That's not what I asked, dungbeetle: I asked why you _did it,_ " There's a bit more to the last part than just words, and it seems to pull the man's attention from whatever he is finding so distracting.

Briefly.

Because the man then goes straight back to looking away from two particular things: whatever is behind Lucifer and Lucifer himself.

And that is  _very_ interesting. Because the only other human he's met who seems able to shrug off his ability so well is one Chloe Decker, and that was most definitely not normal. The Decker Effect, he's thinking of naming it.

"Look, man, I just-" And he was still doing the eye darting thing.

Curiosity firmly piqued, Lucifer turned to see whatever it was that so perturbed the man, making sure to keep holding him against the car.

And there was the lovely Chloe Decker, talking to that douchebag ex of hers and clearly not in the mood for it. Strange how he kept showing up like that, particularly when he only seemed to succeed at pissing off the woman.

But, he had been cruelly banished from the scene, so there would be no antagonising the man right now. "Ah yes, the fiery Detective Decker. I would recommend not lying to her, she's very good at spotting when that happens."  _Very_ good, actually. Nearly as good as he was, when he put the effort in. Just how was that?

"I stay away from her," The man blurts out, then pales dramatically, confirming quite nicely that he was having an effect, just not the sort of effect he wanted. Strange how often these sorts of anomalies were popping up around the fascinating Detective.

"And just why is that, dungbeetle?" He ramps up the voltage, so to speak. This poor fool wasn't weak-minded, as such, but he was certainly weak of will. His profession told that story with great detail. So he would certainly be spilling the beans right about-

"Memories." The word is muttered, and seems to have been dragged out of the man with a hook. Probably one that was being pulled by an elephant judging by the constipated look the cretin was sporting. Which was unusual. More of the Decker Effect in action? Proximity might have something to do with it. Ah! He could use Detective Douche for a little test; hearing him admit things he'd rather not would be a pleasant sword to hang over his head, and would let him know about the effects of proximity if that didn't happen. A true win-win situation, as it were.

"And what sort of memories are we talking about here, hm?  _Fun_ memories that can make things a little  _hard_ for you, hm?" Sexy salacious spying on the Detective would be a wonderful secret to dangle over  _her_ pretty little head, and infinitely more interesting than whatever that bland ex of hers would have.

"No! No, nothing like that, man. Chloe ain't the type." A bitter chuckle made it seem as though he wouldn't have said no to seeing that sort of thing, though Lucifer was hardly the type to cast aspersions on another's desires, particularly when it involved someone like Detective Chloe Decker.

"Well, what could it be that involved you? You, dungbeetle, are hardly the sort of person that she would even talk to, let alone confide in. So what sort of  _memories_ make you avoid the Detective?"

"Bad memories." The man's sweating like a pig now, and his eyes are flickering like a spooked horse's. Suddenly, his patience snaps. He's getting some answers, and right now.

Lucifer plants himself directly in front of the man, grabs his chin with the hand not still holding him to the car, and forces their eyes to meet. Channelling his power directly to his eyes, he says once more, "What history do you have with Detective Decker?"

"Morningstar!" Dan the dick seems to take great joy in brushing by him just forcefully enough to break the eye contact. Well, he probably only meant to get him to put the dungbeetle down, but secondary effects can be just as important. "You cannot just manhandle people who have been arrested! It-"

"Oh, so I can do it to people who haven't been?" In a battle of words, he will never lose to this fool. "Then I have to ask you, _Dan_ -" Because he's hardly happy to be interrupted and the anger is so very easy to tap into right now, he hauls the douche up against the car, right beside where the dungbeetle is now cowering. "What do you not want Chloe Decker to know?"

"I- I . . ." He's fighting, and he's fighting hard. The Decker Effect is having some power here, but if he cranks it up a little bit more then he'll have him. He  _knows_ it.

"Come now Dan, we're just a couple of blokes having a friendly-like chat." The dungbeetle isn't having any problem looking at him now. Doesn't look happy, of course, but at least he's looking. "So - what don't you want to tell the delightful Detective Decker?"

"That-" Then the man seems to go into a choking fit. If he didn't know better, he'd say that a geas had been placed on the man to keep his silence on the matter. As it is, the idiot probably just inhaled some dust and then choked on his own spit. Disgusted, Lucifer steps away from both humans.

"Detective, I-" the dungbeetle is speaking now, and his eyes are on the douche, but flickering over to Detective Decker who is coming this way. Not fast, so whatever the man will say will be heard, but not for him to have enough time to coax Dan the Dick into truthfulness. "Could you please tell Detective Decker that I'm-"

"You can't make up for what you did, Nick. That . . . it crossed a line." And for all the tough words the other man is saying, his eyes and intonation show that he's speaking more to himself than to the cretin. Now he really  _is_ curious as to what happened between the Detective and her ex. It must certainly be something if the man feels he can never make up for it.

"Nick Hofmeister. You've finally gone too far in the eyes of the law. You've finally killed a man for one of your sordid, stupid stories. So what were you trying to prove with this one, Nick?" Detective Decker, striding over in those delicious boots of hers, has no compunctions about hammering the dungbeetle with her accusations. Interestingly, though the words say vindication and righteous justice, her stance and eyes seem to say . . . sad. It's a very intriguing combination. Most people tend to stick to one thing or another; they either mask their darker feelings and pretend to be righteous, or they are out and out sinful. Chloe Decker is pretending to have wrath, to have finally gained her rightful pound of flesh - but she certainly isn't feeling it.

Oh, he certainly made the right decision to follow her from Lux (and he really must thank Maze for her help in locating the Detective). He hasn't met a mortal this intriguing in centuries. And he had  _never_ met one who could resist his ability to ferret out their deepest, darkest desires.

"- gotta believe me, it was an accident!" Hofmeister was pressing himself back against the car, attention fully on the female detective. There wasn't even a shred of attention paid to himself or the douche, despite their being the bigger threats physically and easily within grabbing distance. And the Detective was just staring at the dungbeetle, face like stone and fingers clenched into a fist as she stared at the babbling mess. Really, it brought to mind those merciless warrior queens of ages past, who were judge, jury, and executioner. It certainly fit the detective to a tee.

"Really. You _accidentally_ managed to run someone off the road." Detective Douche jumps in, clearly looking to railroad the man. Which is understandable, if he has done something so heinous to the woman he loves. 

"Well Nick, then I'm sure you'll be happy to continue this down at the precinct." Chloe is staring at the dungbeetle, eyes boring into him with something akin to a hunter in her eyes. It really is quite alluring, when combined with her steadfast confidence.

Nick can't start nodding fast enough. "Yes, that sounds like a good plan. I'll confess, and-"

"Just get back in the car, Nick, and hold off on the confessing until you're at the station and we can get it recorded." Her expression hasn't changed, but Lucifer can almost feel the confusion rising off the woman. Has she picked up on the oddity of his actions?

Chloe strides back over to the crashed car, Dan trailing in her wake like a child eager for attention. Lucifer has more pride then that; he makes sure to stroll over to the car, eavesdropping on the pair all the while.

"That is not Nick Hofmeister."

"Chloe, that is Nick. That is a Nick who has been caught causing a fatal car crash. What is your problem with this case?"

"Dan, Nick didn't even try to wriggle his way out of responsibility! This is a guy who has done his absolute best to spread filth and lies since he became an adult, and you think he can't come up with a single one to save his skin? Hell, I'd-"

She stops, suddenly, staring over at a crowd of paparazzi that are slowly being pushed back, whining all the while, by uniformed police officers.

Lucifer straightens up. What stopped the Detective mid-tirade?

Dan, it seems, is more used to these sorts of sudden halts, because he only comes closer and starts whispering urgently to her. "What do you see, Chlo'? What's the connection that you've made?"

Chloe Decker blinks slowly, eyes moving minutely from the crowd towards the car. _Just what is going on with her?_ She's not on drugs, she's not an alcoholic - he'd know if she had succumbed to those temptations - she can't be having a mental problem like schizophrenia - it would have been picked up for sure whenever she had one of those mandatory psychological assessment that insist on putting police officer through. So just what was going on?

"Nick said he was confessing." What? That's her big revelation? A recap of the phraseology used by the murderer?

Dan seemed as bemused as he was. ". . . Yes, he did," Cautious, his own eyes flicking from Chloe to the paparazzi and his body between the two of them. Oh, what a _loyal_ shield, if rather idiotic. "And . . .?"

Her eyes snap back to his, so very much _there_ and with an intensity that would do a cobra proud. "Nick Hofmeister hasn't even tried to shift the blame, claims to be confessing, and has mentioned his peers recording his downfall exactly zero times," She bares her teeth, which from a distance might be taken for a grin. "He's made sure that all eyes are on him, that anybody else we find here is inconsequential."

Dan's eyes light up, and are decidedly stuck on the slowly dispersing crowd. "You think he had an accomplice," He sounds out the words, eyes still on that crowd.

He misses seeing Chloe's eyes dip and that grin falter. Lucifer straightens up, so very interested in just what will happen in these next few moments. "I think that there was someone else who was here when that poor kid died," Her eyes flicker towards the body, sorrow crossing those expressive eyes for a moment. "Whether they were partially or fully responsible, I can't say for certain. But there was someone else there that Nick was protecting."

She starts to pace, seemingly unaware that Lucifer and Dan are watching her so very closely - Dan with a combination of respect, confusion, and lust, and Lucifer entirely determined to ferret out every hidden facet of her. "It's not going to be someone whose been in the game a long time; he's been competing with them for years. That will engender respect, grudging or otherwise, but there's no way he'd throw himself under the bus for them. No, it's got to be someone younger than him, significantly younger. Someone he views as needing protection, or who _is_ under his protection. Probably just starting out, or at the very least haven't been in the business long." Her head snaps up, eyes locking on to Dan. "I need you to both get a list of the names of all those paparazzi who were there, and to get a list of the people that were involved in Nick's business." Dan nods, all business, and strides off to do exactly that.

Not without a longing backwards glance, of course, but Detective Decker certainly doesn't see it. She's gone back to her pacing, fingers absently fiddling with a ring all the while.

Well, this certainly won't do. He steps into her path, so very interested in just what is happening inside that pretty little head of hers.

* * *

Lucifer is still there. Right. Okay.

This is a problem.

He just saw her using her empathy to work a case.

Though 'using' is perhaps an exaggeration. She'd barely had to reach towards the crowd of paparazzi before the rancid  _victorygleesatisfactionpridecontempt_ had floated up. The rest of them were more subdued, and they tended to have some variation of  _pitytiredshame_ colouring them.

But someone in that crowd was glorying in Nick Hofmeister's fall.

Nick's emotions were rather resigned. It was a mixture of  _tiredreliefworryabsolution_ that seemed to pervade his every movement.

Which was not right.

Nick fought with everything he had on every job he was at. He always wanted to have the best shot, the one that every paper would clamour to buy. He was _determinationexcitementpridecompetition,_ not this bundle of feelings that wouldn't be out of place on a condemned prisoner.

Something was up.

"How often do you have these little epiphanies, Detective?" Lucifer drawls, peering curiously at her all the while. "Often enough that the douche knew to shut up and let your brain work, but not so often that he didn't experience some doubt. And what a way to phrase it! 'What did you _see_ '; not what connection have you suddenly made, but what has passed before your eyes and given the game away."

Chloe tips her head back to look at the sky. That, at least, isn't annoying and very dangerous to her health and sanity.

Lucifer is unperturbed. "It certainly  _seems_ likely; that man could hardly commit a murder without someone pushing him into it - he seems to react to events rather than create them. No, it is entirely sensible: so why did you manage to spot it before anyone else?

Okay, that's it. She is not going to accept his talking down to her, and especially not his insinuation that she was lesser than the other officers.

Chloe snaps her head down and walks over to Nick's totalled car. That, at least, isn't going to ask probing questions that she is in no way going to answer or be a sexist ass.

Lucifer is looking both mystified and confused. "Was it something I said?" He called as he strolled over, long legs eating up the distance. "I simply want an answer to a perfectly reasonable question, Detective."

Chloe clenches her eyes shut. "Do you ever shut up?"  _Oh boy, nearly threw a 'fuck' in there. Time to calm down, and do it fast._ She takes a deep breath, eyes still shut, and slowly exhales, just feeling for her steady flow of energy and ignoring the lighthouse beside her. "Lucifer. This is a crime scene. I need to do my job. You should not be here, legally, and have no moral or personal reason to be here. So go away before someone arrests you for interfering in an ongoing murder investigation."

She's vaguely impressed that he let her get that all out without interrupting. She's slightly chagrined that she couldn't hit 'serenely calm' for her tone and instead got 'this is the last straw/gritted teeth' instead. (Eh. He had pushed a lot of buttons today. That she can see traces where he used his eye voodoo on both Dan and Nick isn't helping in the least.)

Lucifer is staring at her, eyes flickering over her from head to toe without pause. "I am a reasonable man, Detective, but my patience is not infinite. If you'll complete our bargain, then I will indeed see myself out." He straightens, eyes finally settled on just her face, nearly boring into her actually. "My last question: how did you know that there was someone else involved?"

 _Oh, he really needs to mind his phrasing._ "I didn't  _know_ anyone else was involved; I observed the scene, extrapolated from the data available-" _Which is a bit more than what pretty much everyone else here had access to,_ "-and _theorised_ that there was someone else involved in the crash. I don't  _know_ it yet; I've just made a guess that seems pretty likely based on my past experience with Nick and what has happened here today."  _True, true, not a word of it a lie._

Lucifer can tell that, though he certainly seems to sense that there is something amiss if the atypical frown is anything to go by. "You're holding something back," He said at last, slowly saying the words, nearly tasting them in his mouth. "I'll figure it out, Detective. But, for now-" He inclined his head slightly, eyes remaining glued to Chloe's face," I bid you farewell." He turned and strolled off, throwing a casual "Good luck with your dungbeetle!" over his shoulder as he winked at Dan, who was watching all the while as he clung to his cell phone.

* * *

When she's finished going over Nick's car, she's done.

She just- her limit has been hit.

Work, her injury, Trixie - she loves her, don't get it wrong, but she doesn't stop for anything other than sleep - Dan, Lucifer.

So she's getting the fuck out of there before she has a full blown breakdown. A very public, very embarrassing break down.

But she can't right now, she's still at the scene, and there's someone talking to her.

"-a still-warm joint of cannabis in the car. Ma'am, Hofmeister doesn't have a-"

"It wasn't Hofmeister's," Chloe interrupts, barely stopping herself from growling at the nerves that immediately start showing in the rookie. Grow a  _spine,_ damn it. "He didn't smell like weed when I was interviewing him earlier, and he wasn't showing any signs of usage. So that confirms for us that there was someone else there, someone who Nick hasn't even mentioned the possibility of existing."

The rookie nods eagerly, still nervous but knowing where her train of thought is going now. "So that means-"

"That means that I need to have another talk with Nick. Even he can't deny cold hard evidence, no matter what he'd like to do."  _Shit._ Chloe grabs at her shoulder, still tender a couple of weeks on from the incident.

"Ma'am? Do you need anything? I can-" Babbling away, the kid looks about two seconds away from ushering her towards a car so she can head home for a lie-down.

"It's fine, thank you; it just comes and goes and I haven't had a chance to take my prescription in all the rush," A polite smile (alright, showing her teeth without anger) and the kid backs right back down again. Still, best not to traumatise them too much. "I'm on half days - I'll be heading home after this." The kid looks relieved; probably glad that the chances of her collapsing on him because of her stubbornness have decreased.

A final polite smile, instructions to keep her informed as to their results, and she's gone.

She'll speak to Nick this afternoon; hanging around might not do him any good, but it'll certainly do her some.

* * *

Lucifer knows that it would be frowned upon to do this. Legalities, privacy, all that sort of guff that mortals hold so dear.

He could not care less about it.

He wants to know more about the Detective. He's going to find out. So who better to go to than a man who is not in a good position right now and could very much use a favour, who also has a history with the Detective. That he knows exactly where the man will be without having to bother tracking him down is just the icing on top.

Charming the desk sergeant is no difficulty; really, he barely has to use his power to get what he wants. The woman isn't feeble-minded or weak-willed; she's simply bored, sexually frustrated, and easily distracted by it. A cinch, really.

The dungbeetle is sitting at the table, handcuffed to it. He looks twitchy.

Wonderful. This will make things easier.

Lucifer strolls into the cell, carelessly letting the door slam behind him. By the time the cretin has turned to look at the door, Lucifer has situated himself in the chair opposite him.

"So-" Jumpy little thing, isn't he? How he had managed to keep his cool for his . . .  _profession_ remained a mystery. "Tell me about Chloe Decker." This time, he isn't taking any chances; there isn't an inch of give in his voice, and despite his previous proclivity for silence, the cur is a babbling brook now.

"Chloe is-" There's a strangled look on his face, something approaching terror in his eyes. Lucifer raises an eyebrow; truly, he was right to think Chloe Decker akin to a warrior queen if she can inspire such feeling in the louse. "She's a good person, right? Does the right thing, the moral good, tells the truth, all that jazz." He's shaking now, legs jittering and eyes twitching all around the cell. "I'm not." a hysterical chuckle and flickering eyes confirm that little tidbit (not that he had any doubt. There aren't a lot of 'good' people in the world, and this man wasn't a thing like them). "I'm really, really not. I've done things, terrible things and-" Hysterical laughter spills out of his mouth.

Lucifer leans back. This man is teetering on the precipice of sanity, and at this rate he's going to throw himself off the cliff, self-flagellating all the while. Normally with a sinner like this he would have no issues merrily showing him the route, but he does need that information, so . . .

"Nick." Eyes still going every which way and leg practically vibrating. " _Nick_." His eyes stop darting around like jumpy mice, sticking to Lucifer's own.  _Gently does it . . ._ "Nick, why does the Detective hate you so much?"

He's prodding gently at the man's desires, linking his need to confess to this little chat. A simple enough matter, but one that still makes the man take that step towards speaking up. "Right, well you know how she was in that film of hers-"

"Hot Tub High School, yes the memory has certainly stuck with me," A salacious grin and wink, reeling the man back towards coherency. His reward is a quicksilver grin and a slightly less stilted monologue.

"So that movie would have been a flop after release if a certain something hadn't occurred two weeks later-"

This, this is what he's been waiting for. So what is it - drugs? Sex? Both? Ooh, maybe it was an orgy with multiple nubile young girls. Now that is an image he will be savouring for a long time-

"Her dad died, and Hollywood institution Penelope Decker becomes a single mother and widow."

"Oh."

Oh, that is very much not what he wanted. Really, that's practically the opposite of what he wanted. The death of her father is something that the Detective, a clearly family-orientated woman, would have been devastated by, particularly at such an age when she was still so very dependent on her progenitors.

"Yeah, 'oh'. And then-" Hollow chuckles spill from his lips, eyes framed by deep bags. It's clear that the only thing stopping him from continuing his incessant movement is Lucifer's continued grip on his focus. "And then  _I_ come along and make everything that much worse."

Oh, this is not a good story in the least.

"I'd barely started out in the pap business and was desperate to start going somewhere. Basically, I was a young, desperate, impatient _idiot_ ," He spits out, self-disgust clear in his voice.

This is going to be a terrible story. Lucifer feels his anger, never far from the surface, start to stir.

"So I, uh, snuck into the funeral. And took pictures." He's curling in on himself, shoulders hunching up to his ears. Lucifer knows why; his anger is rising and he is doing nothing to contain himself.

"And I did what no one else did: I got the first picture of them leaving the funeral. And, uh-" a rusty chuckle, shoulders still rising, "Chloe was not impressed. Really, truly not impressed. She, uh, punched my lens. But I got a picture of it, like,  _right_ when she hit the lens." There isn't any triumph in his voice, despite the words. "That picture set me up, really." A heavy sigh. "Chloe Decker made my career and has hated my guts ever since. I don't blame her," His eyes have slipped down to the table, shoulders still sky high. "I crossed a line, and I've been trying to make up for it since. She really ripped into me, y'know? And that just- it hit me then, that I'd fucked up majorly. Like, this was something that had really  _hurt_ someone else, and that was not okay." A grimace, or maybe it was meant to be a smile. "I got a career by hurting other people. And I've been thinking for a while that I had to do something to redeem myself, y'know? To try and make up for what I've done. I mean, I've forfeited any right for forgiveness  _long_ ago, but I have to at least try. My soul ain't in good shape, but that doesn't mean I can't work towards being less-" He glances up, catches sight of Lucifer, and clamps his mouth shut.

Lucifer is practically incandescent with rage. This scum had invaded the funeral of a sorely missed man, and for what - monetary gain? Temporary respect? 'Work towards being less'? Oh, this arrogant little man had no _idea_ what it was to strive for redemption but to know that there was never really a chance of it happening, to hope and hope and yet to  _never_ have even a shot in the dark of it happening.

"Less? Less of a cruel, heartless, greedy bastard, obsessed by his next chance at the big time, heedless of whoever he had to stand on to make his way to the top? Your soul isn't just 'not in good shape', _Nick,_ it's barely recognisable as a soul." 

Nick isn't reacting too well to this, is teetering a hairsbreadth away from tumbling into insanity.

Lucifer is very much inclined to push him into it. Very  _tempted,_ in fact. And since when has the Devil said no to temptation?

"I know, I know! That's why I'm trying to help him, stop him from doing what I've done, keep  _his_ soul from _-"_

"Who?" Lucifer has been, yet again, derailed from his previous plans, and this time not by the delightful Detective Decker. The dungbeetle is nearly incoherent in his self-pity and fear, a combination that isn't going anywhere with Lucifer's aura still radiating his displeasure of the man.

But Nick isn't saying any more, has started crying and rocking in his chair. Lucifer absently thinks that if the man actually knew any prayers he'd be reciting them then and there.

Shaking his head in disgust - at the mortal, at the situation - Lucifer stands to leave.

"Please!"

Lucifer stops. The words are nothing he hasn't heard before, over and over, in the depths of Hell as the desperate and depraved begged for even a moment's relief from the agonies of his demesne. Sometimes, he even gave it to them, before flinging them right back into the cycle of pain; the sheer despair and anguish on their faces was always more potent after the knowledge of what  _not_ being in pain was still fresh in their minds.

It's that there was nearly a compulsion to it, that there was very nearly something  _more_ infused into the desperation over than his single-minded determination to say his piece.

Nick Hofmeister, never one to miss an opportunity, has seized it even with Lucifer still showing him his back. "If you see the Detective-" There was no doubt who he meant, not with such regret and shame and bitterness in his voice, "-could you please pass on my sincerest regrets for what happened?"

Lucifer, however, hasn't gotten to where he is by leaving opportunities untaken. And this, right here, is a prime opportunity. A desperate, fear-filled soul that is literally begging for redemption - he couldn't ask for a more obvious opening.

Still, with the Decker Effect in action, he's going to have to be careful about what he asks for - especially with that unknown something extra happening with the dungbeetle.

"I'll make you a deal, dungbeetle," He smiles, teeth showing just how angry he still is. Nick, to his credit, doesn't back down. "Tell me who else was at the scene, and I'll pass on to the Detective just how much you regret your little encounter at  _her father's funeral._ " Nick is on shaky ground. Actually, that's an overstatement. Nick is currently standing on what should be termed 'vanishing ground', and it is currently disappearing at a rate equal to that of Lucifer's patience.

Nick hesitates, but only briefly, before nodding.

Lucifer smirks, and takes his leave, the name of the protégée in his head.

He knew that the little coward would take it. For as much as he wanted to protect the boy, it was far outstripped by his desperation for his own redemption, particularly from Chloe Decker.

_And the desperate always take the Devil's deal._

* * *

Chloe was luxuriating in a midday doze in the sun when there was an insistent knock on the door.

Idly, she raised an eyebrow. Dan was early for his pre-arranged visit, which was a first, and she had-

Nope, it's a lighthouse. Or, to put it another way, it's Lucifer Morningstar. Oh, joy. She is really not in the mood for another round of minding every single word that comes out of her mouth. It doesn't seem like she's got a choice though, not with the man  _still_ knocking on her door (she has a doorbell, couldn't he use that? Just the one ring, that she'd then be able to ignore? Was that too much to ask for?).

Trixie peeps out from her room, the adorable little munchkin. "Is that Dad?" She asks brightly, brow slightly furrowed as though she already knows the answer.

"Nope," Chloe stretches out her back before making her way to the door. "It's actually-"

"Detective!" He chimes brightly, strolling inside without hesitation as his eyes darted every which way.  "What a lovely house you have! However did you afford it - is there something else I should know about your lifestyle in order to be able to live here? I have to say, you've kept it very close to your chest, you sly dog, you," He smirks at her, eyes intent.

Chloe . . . doesn't really know what's going on right now. "Whatever you're thinking, you're probably wrong. This is my mom's house, that she bought with her own money from her acting career." She manages to catch Trixie's eye when Lucifer is seemingly spellbound by an old poster of her mom's, long enough to look meaningfully at his legs. Trixie, that darling girl, nods seriously before speedily finishing packing her backpack for her outing.

Oh, this is going to be good.

"Penelope Decker? Your mother was Penelope Decker, the queen of eighties cheeseball sci-fi?" Wow, he sounds like Christmas has come early for him. Whatever it is he's thinking, she doesn't want to know. "You have to introduce me." Nope, she was wrong: she definitely doesn't want to know.

Those two in the same room, interacting? Verbal, and maybe literal, apocalypse. Chloe manages, somehow, not to show the dread that fills her on the thought of that meeting occurring, and responds with a much more socially appropriate, "I don't, and I probably won't."

Lucifer, for once, seems to get that she's closing the topic. Though it could be that he's grown bored of it, ADHD sufferer that he acts like, and moves on to the next logical thing.

"So how did you rebel?" Logical in his mind, at least.

"What?" Ooh, and now she has to be doubly careful; Trixie's waiting in the wings for her best chance to hug/attack (or is it hug-attack?) the man. "What do you mean, rebel?"

"Penelope Decker established a dynasty of acting," He's speaking slowly, like she's a particularly dimwitted child. And, once again, her list of 'Reasons to Troll the Lord of Hell' grows ever longer. "You are not currently an actor, despite your brief and illustrious appearance. So - what changed? How did you get good old mum to stand up and take notice that you didn't want to do the family thing?"

O . . . kay, he's not projecting at all.

"I decided after doing my movie that acting wasn't for me, told Mom, and we moved on. There were no fireworks, or rebellions, or whatever it is your imagining." And she really needs to cut this one short. Fortunately, she has the perfect distraction.

"Lucifer!" Aaand there she goes, running full tilt towards the clearly surprised man, before enveloping his legs as best as she can and with as much affection as she can.

Chloe barely manages to hold back a wince. Because Trixie isn't just hugging as hard as she can, she is shoving her happy emotions towards him as best she can.

Where's a distraction for the distraction, come on,  _think_ Decker-

"You can let me go now, small child," Lucifer is leaning as far away as he can, and seemed to be seriously debating lifting a leg to free at least one of his limbs.

Abort, abort, abort; just because he hasn't picked up on it now doesn't mean he's not going to-

"Trixie babe, you need to finish getting ready for when your dad gets here, alright?" Chloe makes sure to give her daughter a particular  _look,_ to tell her that she caught that and she was not impressed. Trixie, utterly unrepentant, only beams up at the pair of them before skipping back to her room.

"She's going to keep doing that to you, by the way,"  _Shit._ That was a terrible way to put it. Fortunately, Lucifer still looks like he thinks they're both crazy, so she might be able to save this little fumble. "She hugs all her friends, and she thinks of you as a friend, so she's going to keep doing it." There; that's an explanation that doesn't sound as though she's already accepted his ongoing presence in her/their lives.

Lucifer, apparently keen on proving he has no sense of normal human interaction, still looks like he's thinking of having a psych eval done on them both.

"Your offspring likes me?" Huh. That's an offended tone of voice. Unusual.

"I'd have thought that obvious, since the first thing she did on seeing you was give you a hug-" (" _Misdirect, obfuscate, confuse - when in doubt, make them doubt everything, darling,_ ") "-and _then_ decided to pay attention to her mother," She adopts a mock offended tone, and makes sure her voice can be heard from wherever Trixie is listening in.

Sure enough, there's a slight spike in her daughter's emotions ( _surprisemischief_ and a hint of  _guiltexcitement_ just to round it out) after she speaks. They will certainly be having a talk about what is and isn't appropriate to do with your ability, and she might just round it off with a lecture on discretion, safety, and manipulation. It would certainly go long enough for her to miss her program and there would be no dessert for her for the next few nights. (And she was going to start training her. Right now, she's a bit of a loose cannon and that is as safe as it sounds.)

"Right. Well, I managed to get a name out of the dungbeetle, so we can leave your spawn here and go and-"

"Lucifer, I can't leave Trixie alone! She's only  _seven_." 'Cultural differences' seems a bit of an understatement. It's still the only thing that she can use to explain how fucking _ignorant_ he is about children.

"She can walk and talk, and she's managed to survive so far - what's the problem? Surely she's at least intelligent enough to be able to not kill herself for a couple of hours." 

 _Which, yeah, but self control isn't something kids do. Especially not kids who know they're already in for a lecture and as such have no reason to refrain from doing whatever the hell they want._ She can't really say that to Morningstar, however, since he seems to live on stirring people up so he can luxuriate in the chaos, so she settles for a witty enough retort. "Never have children. You would kill them."

"Why would I ever want to spawn? I can understand why you think I should, Detective, but I'm afraid that my genes will not be passed on to another; they shall remain mine and mine alone forever more." 

That . . . was a bit more sombre than she expected.  _Family issues, got it._ "Well, I'm not leaving Trixie here-"

"Fine! Let's just take her with us! I'm sure that would look very professional to bring your child along with you on a case!" The man's practically pouting, and she's vaguely surprised that he hasn't thrown up his hands in disgust nor folded them childishly.

She's still going to set him straight. "Because Dan should be here in five minutes, and, also, everyone likes Trixie!" Cue Trixie coming back, since she, like every person ever, automatically tunes in whenever she hears her name.

"Mommy? Are you doing work?" Oh, and now her daughter's pouting at her. Great. She's caught between two pouting children, one of whom is supposedly an actual, functioning, mature adult. (She doubts it. He's lived thousands of years and still acts like this? Nuh-uh.)

"Yeah sweetie, me and Lucifer are going to go do some once your Dad's here, alright?"

And now her bottom lip is wobbling. Huh?

"Are you going to get hurt again?" Trixie asks in that quiet voice that is on the verge of tears. Oh, her daughter is  _good._ If she hadn't already had a conversation with her about her work, responsibilities, and been completely open about her injury (and recovery time and pain level - her daughter could be quite thorough when she was concerned), she would really believe that Trixie is on the verge of a break down. (Alright, she might shorten her lecture a little bit. But just a bit.)

Lucifer doesn't have the insider knowledge. As such, he's dropped his own pout and is edging as casually as he can towards the door. "I'll just let you explain it to your spawn and wait outside, I wouldn't-"

Whatever he wouldn't, she'll never know, since the front door rings. Lucifer seizes upon it with something like desperate relief on his face, opens the door, and manages to swap positions with Dan at a speed that makes her absently wonder if he can also teleport.

Dan, to his credit, manages to move past his abrupt relocation and bends down to give Trixie a hug after only a minor suspicious look at her door where the now-invisible Lucifer just was.

"Monkey! Come give me a hug!" 

Trixie does so, giving Chloe a rather large wink over his shoulder. Ah, multi-tasking; they learn so young.

"Okay Dan, I'm heading out to do some work, I should be back for dinner." A curt nod to him, a blown kiss and a wink of her own to Trixie, and she's gone.

* * *

She's already decided that she cannot get back together with him. It could, literally, end up killing him.

And she can't- no,  _will not_ tell him why.

It would be so very easy to slip back into their old relationship, to let him be a proper dad, to really share Trixie with him like they did in those early years.

But she's scared, and a bit selfish, and she doesn't want to kill him.

So she shoves him away, denies even the possibility of getting back together, and tries her best to make him not want to.

If she was a bit less selfish she'd stop being even semi-friends with him. But he is a good friend, is probably one of the only true, genuine friends she has ever had. And she doesn't want to lose that.

But she will not kill him, even if it kills them both a bit on the inside.

* * *

Dan's list bears out the confession that Lucifer brought to her.

Josh Bryant appears on both the lists. He is registered as a driver with Nick's company, and is unofficially the main user of the car that was at the scene. That he was also named with only minor persuasion from Lucifer is the icing on top.

They need to have a little chat with the young probably-murderer.

And . . .

"Okay, Lucifer, we need to do things by the book."

He's not impressed in the least.

"Justice doesn't need a book of rules, Detective! We should be out there making the young miscreant pay! He has purposefully killed another, and then doesn't even admit to the crime, allowing another to shove their head on the chopping block - punishment is the only option!"

His eyes, his words, his posture - all of it is intent, and certain, and slightly gleeful . . . but there isn't that rabid hatred that was there in the last case that they worked. He isn't personally invested in this one, and it makes all the difference right now.

Because back then she could only redirect Lucifer, try and limit the damage that he does. But here, she might be able to divert him entirely, might be able to make it so that Josh Bryant keeps his mind and body intact prior to his permanent place in the justice system.

"If I don't do things by the book, I will get fired. Someone else will take over this case, and Josh might be able to get away before they get caught up. Also, I'll be out of a job, and I both like and need that job, so we'll stick to the book."

Lucifer isn't listening to her reasoning. He's decided on his goal, and she is now his audience. Oh, joy. "A crime has been committed and punishment is due! Detective, surely you-"

"Lucifer!" For whatever reason, that pulls him back out of his hard-on for punishment. Maybe it's her tone, which should convey even to this blissfully oblivious man just how over his shit she is. Maybe it's that her fingers are very nearly caressing her gun.

Maybe it's the energy she stabbed him with. (Yeah, it was probably that one.)

"If Josh is guilty-" A warning eyebrow stops him from butting in, but she can tell it won't work a second time so she'd better make this fast, "-then I'll interrogate him and get it out of him, and then he'll be punished by our justice system. And his chances of appeal or parole are practically zip if that happens; high profile case, cold blooded murder, and that the guy threw someone under the bus for him, someone who had looked after and helped him for years? There isn't a parole board in the country that would let him walk."

Lucifer's gone that type of still that makes her think of dangerous things, of a leopard in a tree, or knives in the dark, or even just a quiet word in the right-wrong ear at just the right-wrong time. He wants to hurt something, and she's not entirely sure it's not her.

 _Abort, abort-_ "Look, Lucifer," She gentles her tone, steps in closer to him, folds her arms borderline defensively over her stomach ( _"Body language doesn't work on a conscious level most of the time, darling, and that alone would never stand up in court. Make them think you're prey when you're the hunter, that you're the innocent doe when you're the black widow - and the other way around, of course."_ ). "You want to punish the guilty, right?"

He's still staring at her, but deigns to give a single, clipped nod, eyes boring into her own.  _Don't hesitate, don't falter, tell the truth and make it the best lie in the world that they want to hear, sell it like it's your life- no, like it could be Trixie's life on the line._

"What I do is to track down the guilty people, and to make sure that they are punished by our justice system. I make sure that the right person is punished, and that no one who is innocent suffers for something that they didn't do." Putting it into those terms seems to be working, and the little circle they're making means that the words won't go further than the two of them and somehow get twisted into something like, I don't know, she was into S&M and was getting that civvie club owner in on it so that she could start getting off at crime scenes.

(She might be slightly paranoid and pessimistic about gossip, but she saw how much damage could be done by her mother with that 'mere' woman's weapon. She sure as hell stayed away from that as much as she could after that little awakening, thank you very much.)

"And to make sure that Josh Bryant is guilty and that he will be punished appropriately, I need to do this interrogation by the book. You can watch from the observing room." She finishes quickly, hoping that the tidbit of watching her work would sate his blood-lust.

"Very well, Detective. I shall simply have to watch you in action," His eyes trail pointedly over her form, and the smug tone and arched eyebrow leave no question as to what he is ostensibly talking about. The curious, hungry look in his eyes gives the lie to the languid, lazy way he is taking her in.

Chloe Decker refuses to hesitate, doesn't acknowledge the way her heart is pumping, and only snaps at him when she can tell that he's looking at her ass as she strides to her car. "If you don't get  _your_ ass into gear, Morningstar, you won't get to watch even the blood being mopped up after I'm done." She pauses a moment, just long enough to see the sharpness in his eyes. "Metaphorical blood, of course," She finishes neatly, a socialite-bright smile on her face.

Lucifer laughs.

* * *

Josh Bryant sits in the seat. He looks slightly nervous - jiggling leg, hands twisted together in his lap, eyes flicking between the mirror (that everyone knows it's now a one-way window means that they can't say with complete certainty that they're the only person in there, they don't know if even now they're being watched. She's played on that feeling of paranoia a few times, and made sure a couple more to stifle it before they do something stupid like, say, trying to fight their way out of the station.) and the table. But his shoulders aren't hunched, his back isn't curved, and he hasn't said anything other than a few wise-cracks and some not-so-friendly suggestions.

Chloe Decker smiles, a slow, satisfied look. This,  _this_ is what she loves to do. Use all her skills - her observations, her training, her abilities - to make someone crack, to find the weakness in their reasoning, their justification, whatever they used to be able to kill . . . and to rip it to shreds, to leave them exposed and crushed and condemned to the fate they deserved. She so very much enjoyed this, matching her words and her wits against people, tripping them up and challenging them and  _winning._

Chloe strides into the room, a couple of folders in her hand as she sits down in the other chair.

Bryant doesn't waste any time, barely letting her ass touch the seat before he's pleading his case. "I was there! It was Nick! The guy was driving, was all over the show, and then suddenly bam! We hit that other car and it goes off the road and into the wall! I blacked out from the crash, and then Nick woke me up and told me to get outta there, that he was the one driving and it was his fault, and-"

"Josh Bryant." Delicately, she rifles through the folders, finding the one detailing the kid's life in the system. It's not that pretty, but it certainly took a turn for the better once Nick came into his life, surprisingly. He's not going to trust her in the least, so that approach is well gone. And judging by his emotions, he's twitchy and doing his best not to show it. Well, far be it for her to start picking away at his bedrock of selfish egocentricity. "Why did Nick start helping you out, Josh?"

A simple, easy question. She'll start stabbing soon enough. The kid smiles awkwardly, barely restraining from fluttering his hands around for emphasis. "Aw, man, he was just a good guy, y'know? I was sixteen and things were going a bit rough for me, y'know?" Not really, but he wouldn't expect her to. Her faux-understanding nod tells him that. "He's my idol, y'know? He's, like,  _the best_. Has been for ages since, well, since that picture of you, Detective." A shy smile, eyes focused on hers. There's something . . . not right in them. "And, I have to say when I have this opportunity, that it's a real honour to meet you. Your movie was a favourite of mine growing up."

 _Bryant 1, Decker 0._ Because that was a very nice little move; he's both emphasised how young he is, made himself out to be like every other boob-obsessed teenager, and also managed to bring up _that_ memory. First blood to Bryant.

Chloe smiles serenely at him, a hint of teeth in the saccharine sweetness evident. "So Nick helped you out with your job, with your life - and, you're saying, he told you to not even tell the police you were there, to just get away from a crime scene and pretend it never happened?" She cocks her head, a curious smile on her lips.

He shrugs, a self-effacing boy with awkward shoulders too close to his ears. "Well, that was Nick, you know? He always helped me out with anything. And when I told him that I wanted to be like him - a pap, right? - he started teaching me that too." A shy smile, and his leg stops moving. "I wanted to be just like him - the best."

 _Thank you very much for that opening._ "Is that why you were posting pictures of Nick's arrest within the hour?" Her tone is still gently curious, eyes intent on him. "Because you wanted to be the best?"

"I was just following Nick's footsteps, doing what he would've done."

Fuck, she's wondering a bit if he might be a psychopath in that other people don't matter to him. This is a kid who is framing a man who helped him out, someone whose likely the only genuine and real (ugh,  _Nick_ , ugh) parental influence he's ever had. There is something messed up with this kid, that's for sure.

It's clear to her, now, that she isn't going to get anywhere with her regular tools. The kid has a good act - she might even buy it if she couldn't feel what he was feeling (there was too much nervous fear for him to be genuinely innocent) - and he was sticking to his story. Try and do a prosecution in front of a jury and he'd be off before dinner, with all the old dears clucking about his terrible upbringing and what bad luck he'd had with going from the system into the arms of a budding murderer. Yeah, nah; not happening.

So - ability is a go.

Chloe keeps looking at him, letting the silence build, but starts bringing out those emotions of his, the ones she'd first felt at the scene just after the death - that dark glee, the pride, the schadenfreude at seeing Nick fall on his sword without even a push from him.

"But-" She shakes her head, burying her head in the files, peripheral vision picking up Bryant's eyes still looking at her. Good; he's stopped remembering the mirror. "No, I shouldn't say it to you," It's the hint of adult condescension that makes him pipe up; a teenager's ride triggering the trap she's spun on the fly.

"No, I want to hear it. I mean-" He musters a sorrowful look, eyes falling to the table. His emotions don't change, and she prods that scorn, that  _I can do better_ that he's still sneering at Nick about even higher. ( _"Pride goes before a fall is very true, darling, but remember that they have to be looking at a prize not to see the trap in front of them."_ ) "Nick killed someone. Accidentally, I mean-" Hurried words and a flickering gaze; trying to sow doubt about whether it was accidental? "-but, yeah, he killed someone." Weak grin, eyes back to her once more. "I doubt my opinion of him can get any worse."

"I was just thinking . . . is Nick the best?" She keeps her tone gentle, an adult breaking a hard truth to a child. (It'll only stoke his anger, his annoyance further, she'll make sure of it - and make it that much harder for him to keep control of his temper.) "He wasn't always the first, and some of his pictures didn't even get picked up in the end. Really-" A dry chuckle, eyes still on the folders. "Nick wasn't the best. Sure he got a scoop with me, but what has he done that's that big since?" She keeps her face straight due to experience, nothing else.

Bryant's emotions are bubbling up. Her reinforcement of something the kid has been - subconsciously, consciously, she's not sure - thinking gives him that last little push. "That's what I was asking Nick about just before! He's always talking about how there's rules, and lines that can't be crossed, and that while we have a job we have to have respect and I was just like - 'Nick, you're a pap. There  _are_ no lines!' and he wasn't happy about that, and y'know . . ."

"Y'know  _what_ , Josh?"  _Honey not vinegar, honey not vinegar._ "Is there something . . ."

"Nick wanted to stop being a pap, wanted to help more people like me," The words are tumbling out of his mouth, the manic energy finding an outlet after she'd inflamed it so much releasing at last. "So I took him with me on that job, and the whole time he kept going on about a 'breach of privacy' and limits and all this other bullshit and I just started thinking ' _He's not the best, he's not number one, he's not first'._ " He's breathing heavily, eyes alight.

Chloe leans in. "And that's when you became first, isn't it Josh? You made sure that you guys would get a massive scoop - the death of a celebrity! But Nick didn't understand, did he?" Her voice turns conspiratorial as she leans further in. It doesn't make a difference to the microphone in the room, but it makes all the difference to Josh Bryant, caught in the trap she's woven and not even realising it. "And that's why you let him take the fall for you. It was time for him to move over and make space for you." Josh is nodding along, hypnotised by her words. "And what better way for the old king to make way for the new than to fall on his sword?" If this were just a story, she'd love the delicious irony of the whole thing - the former villain trying to come good by saving a lost soul, only to be betrayed by his own successor so as to take up his original title.

Josh is still nodding, that strange light in his eyes getting brighter. " _Exactly,_ " He whispers, eyes glued to her eyes. "Nick didn't understand that sometimes you have to break a few eggs to make an omelette. And now  _I'm_ the best." He grinned to himself, eyes finally floating free of her and over to the mirror.

"Thank you very much for your confession, Josh Bryant. You'll be informed soon when you're being transferred to a prison out of this holding cell." Brisk, business-like, and without a trace of sympathy or empathy in her, Chloe Decker strides from the room. Brutally, she ends her control on his emotions, leaving him with an emotional drop and the sudden understanding that he has just confessed to a cold-blooded murder that had previously been pinned on someone else.

Chloe smiles.

_Ah, she loves her job._

Now, if only she'd had the chance to shoot him . . .

* * *

Lucifer applauds slowly when she enters the room, an impressed look on his face. Chloe quirks an eyebrow, but otherwise just continues to make her way to her desk (paperwork, it's endless).

"I am impressed, Detective," He informs her loftily, strolling along behind her and flashing smiles at everyone all the while. "You managed to get him to admit to both purposefully killing the man and framing his father-figure." He tuts sadly, still flashing that smile at everyone who passes by. "I can understand why he did it - well, kind of," He hastily continues when she shoots him a quelling look. "The favoured son questioning his father, being told what is and isn't to be done, and then not even having a chance to redeem himself? Completely understandable!"

 _Well that's . . . stretching things a bit. Also, how egocentric is he?_ Because so far, Lucifer seemed to genuinely think that everything that happened was related to him. His problems, his wants, his whims, his desires, his needs -  _everything._

Lucifer hasn't even noticed her wandering thoughts, still blathering on about how his problems are intimately related to the case."-certainly didn't kill anyone else to make a point, that's all bad press you know." He comes back down to Planet Earth when she starts filling out her paperwork head turned away and soft humming making it clear he has an audience of one right now.

Abruptly, he changes tack. "By the way, Detective," He drawls, eyes examining her from head to toe. "No matter how you ignore me, I'm not going to go away." He slouches on a nearby chair, sending a wink over at a visibly annoyed fellow officer.  _Well, guess she knew who would have her on their hit list next._ "You're much too fascinating for me to just leave you alone. And interesting things keep happening around you," His eyes gleam as he leans closer to her, a hand blocking her pen forcing her to meet his eyes. "I'm not going anywhere."

_Great. Now she's not only a person with a couple of mystic-y abilities, she's also being stalked by the Lord of Hell because he's bored._

"Lucifer, you're not allowed to just follow me around because you're bored," She infuses the sentence with as much monotone as she can, trying to make him believe that she's unfazed by a guy declaring his intention to stalk her and that she's definitely not freaked out because of any other reason, no sirree. "You're not a police officer, you're a civilian who shouldn't even be  _here,_ let alone following me to active,  _sensitive,_ crime scenes." She keeps her voice quiet and tries to convey supreme disdain for him. It's probably not going to work, but that's her role in this little game she's playing - the by-the-book  _human_ police officer with a sense of humour trying not to shoot him from frustration.

She's right. 

He completely ignores her put down, and has adopted a devious expression, a smirk tugging at his lips. “Well, I guess I’ll just have to change that then, won’t I?”

Exasperated, Chloe gets back to her paperwork. Eventually, he gets the message and stops trying to provoke her, instead going back to his club for debauchery of some type.

It’s only once she gets back to her house, with Trixie sleeping in her bedroom, that Chloe allows herself a quiet little laugh.

She’s just gotten adopted by the Devil. Not in so many words, of course, but the man clearly intends to stick around her as much as possible.

She grins. Does that make her his heir? Still grinning, Chloe goes to bed. It has been one hell of a day, and she has a feeling that tomorrow isn’t going to be much better.

* * *

“-all over his back! It was seriously creepy, and I have no idea how it wasn’t picked up before, but there ain’t no way-”

Whoever is speaking trails off when Chloe enters the break room. Frowning slightly, she makes her way to the coffee machine, listening as hard as she can to try and find out just why they all shut up as soon as she entered the room.

“Hey Decker, the hell happened in that interrogation – sorry, _interview_ of yours?” It’s Jacobs speaking, staring at her with a combination of curiosity and fear. His feelings are pretty similar, and she appreciates that this is a man who doesn’t give her a headache over having to keep the different layers straight in her head.

“What? I just got in, whatever happened I have no idea what you guys are talking about.”

“Seriously? You don’t know?” That seems to be the cue for him to stop looking at her like she’s two steps away from shanking someone, and he plods forwards, expression and emotions changing to _disgustpitycuriositydisdain._ (Jacobs has never liked her; she’s pretty sure it’s because she keeps asking questions when he just wants people to shut their mouths.)

“Um, no?” Her voice, posture, and evident (and genuine, which makes it even better) ignorance has the mood of the room changing, which is wonderful since she was half wondering if she’d sleep-murdered someone and just couldn’t remember it from the emotions she was picking up.

“That kid you were in the room with yesterday?” Drawing near, Jacobs has pinned a solemn expression on his face. _Is he dead? Whining about police brutality, or planting evidence, or just about how it was all a mistake?_

“He woke up this morning crazy.” He continues on hastily when she pins him with her _Get the fuck on with it_ look, one that has been well-honed with all the rookies she’s been handed. “ _Legit_ crazy. Straitjacket, padded room, yammering on about the Devil crazy. And the weirdest bit of it all?” He leans in, disgusted glee surfacing on his face. “He had all these names on his back, names of people that he’s hurt for his sicko pap thing.” He shakes his head, rolling his shoulders. “And they didn’t look like tattoos or anything; these looked like they’d been _burned_ into his back.” He shivers dramatically, eyes still scrutinising her reaction. “Gives you the creeps, doesn’t it?” He claps her on the back, hard, then wanders off for someone else to shoot the breeze with.

Chloe Decker stands in the room. She stays very, very still, empty coffee mug still clasped in her right hand.

Josh Bryant had woken up today crazy and with the names of the people he had hurt burned onto his back.

_Lucifer._

She nearly booked it out of the room and over to Lux to give him a dressing down.

 

She didn’t.

 

And not because she suddenly understood his reasons for doing so, but for the simple reason that she was not going to be the person who made the LAPD aware of the fact that not every person out there claiming supernatural powers was delusional and/or a fake.

Because that was what would happen if she ran to Lux.

This was a serious concern for the brass; a prisoner had been permanently mutilated whilst in the secure lock up. And there was proof positive that she was innocent of doing it – the recording from yesterday would be sufficient, and the cameras on the holding cell corridors wouldn’t show her anywhere near them. They would have to acknowledge her innocence . . . and that she would be bound to have a link to whoever did this. It was her case, and she was the one who interrogated Bryant. Like it or not, she was the lead investigator in the case, making her a prime suspect. But, on being cleared, it only opened up the circle of blame to those how had been in close contact and communicating with her. They were the most likely people to have heard about Bryant being dirty, about how he had orchestrated the whole thing for his career – and from there, it wasn’t a massive mental leap to realise that he would have started somewhere else first.

Dan – he’d been calling her all day. Lucifer – he’d shadowed her all day. Her mother – the woman had been unimpressed by just how long it took the clinic to adequately assess her, and had been texting her the whole day to share the pain.

But Dan and Lucifer? They’d be the most likely suspects. They couldn’t definitively place the blame on one of them for the exact same reason that they had to know something not-normal had facilitated the whole thing: the camera recording wouldn’t show anyone entering or leaving the cell, despite the fact that something had happened under their collective noses.

So there would be suspicions pinned on the both of them, but they’d need proof about it.

As such, she couldn’t go and yell at Lucifer, as therapeutic as such a thing would be.

Desperation leads people to do whatever they have to, and someone’s head was going to roll with this fiasco.

So Chloe very carefully stood up, filled her coffee cup, and made her way to her desk, where she immediately placed her head in her hands and stared at that spot on her desk where Trixie had spilt nail polish.

She didn’t say or do anything about the people in the department who were looking at her more than their computers, or that they had left the break room at the same time she had, or even about their emotional focus being on her and everything else a distant second.

She couldn’t yell at Lucifer without spilling the beans about her ability and his heritage to her watchers - and their superiors -, who she was sure would follow her wherever she went.

Suddenly, she paled even further.

_If Lucifer has done this to Bryant, what the hell had he done to Nick?_

* * *

If anything had been done to Nick, then she didn’t hear about it from another cop. Or, actually, from anyone who was calling to share the news of the tragic thing that had happened.

Nick Hofmeister, it seemed, had managed to make a deal with the Devil for his continued good health.

Josh Bryant could say no such thing. He ended up getting sent to a secure psychiatric unit, declared mentally disturbed and not fit for a court case. If that ever changed, however, Chloe was reasonably certain that public outcry over his getting away with it would result in the cases being opened.

She thought about saying something to Lucifer, wanting to know why he’d felt the need to punish Bryant so much; as far as she knew, he didn’t do much of that any more. Otherwise, he certainly wouldn’t have time to stalk her with all the sinning happening in this city. Bryant, clearly, was an exception that he had taken great pleasure in reducing.  
But asking about it was . . . tricky. Her persona would have suspicions about Lucifer being involved in what happened, but would have eventually dismissed the whole thing as a combination of a poorly done strip search and a conveniently timed mental break when the video didn’t show so much as a single frame of his presence; and, as such, wouldn’t say a word to Lucifer (though would probably regard him with a bit more suspicion as the beginning).  
Real Chloe, Chloe-with-abilities-and-secrets, wanted to scream at him about fucking with her mortal justice system and for once more making her look like a Machiavellian-level mind game player who was able to cause someone who had no known previous history of mental health problems to go stark staring bonkers hours after talking to her.

But she _couldn’t,_ because she was not telling him about her ability.

 She was especially keen not to now.

If he’d do that to someone who had, she figured, slightly pissed him off, then what would he do to someone who had been lying to him for weeks? Lucifer, who prided himself on not lying.

She was so fucked.

There was no way he could keep this to herself indefinitely, not when he was so determined to figure her out, and when it came out she was going to be in a world of pain.

He’d already proven he had no qualms about punishing guilty humans. A guilty her? There wouldn’t be any hesitation.

* * *

When she comes back from lunch, there's a note on her desk.

Anonymous.

_Good work on getting that pap fucker. Btw, that club weirdo is going to get the Chief to assign him permanently to you. Tough luck, Decker._

Chloe methodically rips the paper to shreds and gets started on her paperwork.

_So fucked._

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies if some of my American or British (or should that be English after the Brexit and subsequent political downsizing?) phrasing/idioms etc are a bit off. I am neither, and as such don't have the innate knowledge of them.
> 
> Further notes on this chapter:  
> Nick’s punishment was more mental than anything; Lucifer played him a recording he had *somehow* acquired of Chloe talking about what she thought of Nick. As in, there is no 'I forgive you Nick' happening in this universe.  
> For those of you interested, Josh Bryant had the names of those whom he had harmed burned onto his back because Lucifer enjoyed ‘stabbing’ him in the back with all of his crimes when he had very nearly succeeded in completely setting up Nick Hofmeister to take the fall; stabbing him in the back, so to speak and also keeping with the whole ironic punishment that cropped up in the episode. (Frankly, if he’d pulled it off, it would have been very impressive; he’d both set the death up, gotten his father-figure to believe it was an accident, and succeeded in getting the man to not only volunteer to save him as well as think it was his own idea? That is both very cold-blooded – hence why I hinted that I thought Josh lacked empathy at the least, and several emotions/core traits of humanity – and manipulative in a way that is not, typically, seen in guys.)  
> I specifically didn’t bring race into this episode; I’m sure someone somewhere has written about how easy it was for people to believe that Josh was responsible/involved in all those terrible events because he wasn’t white. Frankly, I don’t think I would be able to write realistically, respectfully, and honestly about the situation due to a lack of experience that I, as a white person, will never truly be able to understand the difficulties faced by people who aren’t.
> 
> Addendum: Chapter edited 20/02/17:  
> Minor edits from things that were revealed in canon after chapter was posted. Minor grammar/spelling corrections done as well.


	7. Reasonable

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Season 1, Episode 3: The Would-Be Prince of Darkness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys,
> 
> First of all, thanks for reading this story; am really pleased with your responses so far :)  
> That being said, this chapter feels a bit more jumbled then the previous ones, so would really appreciate any feedback people have to say about it, whether it's a sentence or two or a full blow-by-blow review
> 
> Thank you again for reading!

Chloe tries very hard not to facepalm when Lucifer finally shows her why she is there.

A dead body floating in a pool.

Oh joy.

Acerbically, she asks him whether he's even bothered to read the procedures that were given to him as part of his trial basis and, if so, whether he could read and see that their job is to  _solve_  murders, not to  _find_ them.

(Later, when she thinks back on his actions, she will resolutely ignore her mom's voice whispering about cats bringing dead birds to show they care, and how gifts are a part of courting.)

* * *

Ty Huntley is probably not guilty.

Of murder, that is.

He's radiating guilt like anything, presumably thinking that if it wasn't for him Ally Thornton would not have been found face down in a pool this morning (he might be right, he might be wrong; it's way too early to tell at this stage in the investigation). But he's not so one-dimensional as to stick to just that emotion, oh no! No, he's got a particularly noxious cocktail of guilt, anger, confusion, sadness, betrayal, and just a hint of lust. (She's going to be generous and assume that's because his libido finally came online after getting laid last night, and that he's neither a necrophiliac nor gets off on death.) If she hadn't long grown accustomed to this sort of thing, she'd be gagging in a corner right now between that and the combined emotions of the hungover partygoers. 

But she can hardly say that he's innocent just like that, and the alcohol does blur things a bit - doesn't it always? - making the margin of error when using her ability a lot wider than she's comfortable with. So, she'll just be a hardass on him to prove she's doing her job right and so that there is no doubt about it when she finds him innocent.

And then Lucifer fucking Morningstar just has to come along and blunder all over  _that_ particular plan.

"The boy is innocent, Detective, I can assure you of that." There he goes again, staring down at her as though he expects her to just take his word as gospel and give way. Yeah, nah.

"I cannot say that with complete certainty, Lucifer, because at this stage he is the only person who has both motive and opportunity. No one else at the party particularly remembers her for anything other than being in Ty's company, and if she'd had an argument or an ex or something like that happen then someone would have witnessed it and spoken up by now."

"Well that's all well and good, but the boy is innocent. He doesn't deserve to suffer for another's crime!" Lucifer looks incensed, and seems about two steps away from shaking her in frustration. His emotions are a roiling mess, not one of them being strong enough for long enough for her to be able to figure out what they are. It is not helping her in the least, what with the truly appetising stench of vomit that is hanging around the place.

"And he won't suffer if he is innocent. Because the real killer will be found, with proper evidence, and they will be brought to justice, be they Ty Huntley or someone else."  _Keep your temper, keep your mouth shut, don't let on._

"But Ty is  _innocent._ He shouldn't be locked away while the real killer just waltzes around!"

"I completely agree. So as soon as we know who the real killer is, they will be taken into custody and charged. Until then, Huntley is our prime suspect, and he shall be held until his bail is posted."  _Sometimes I really hate the justice system - 'If you've got money, then fuck prison!'_

"But that's not justice, _Detective,_ that's doing something for the sake of appearances!" And that is  _too far_ for her.

"Listen, Lucifer, we have these things called rules and regulations. If you manage to, God forbid, stick with this 'probation' thing the captain has going, you're going to have to stick to them, too. Arresting Ty Huntley is part of that. He's going to be in a local precinct lock up for, at most, twenty-four hours before his bail is posted. He won't go to prison. He won't go to court. And I - _we_ - will be free to continue this investigation and find the real killer while the media salivates over this twist and leaves the memory of Ally Thornton alone." Subconsciously, she's started pooling energy in her hands.  _Fuck._ Forcefully, she brings herself back to where she is - in a luxurious house in swanky LA, at the beginning of a murder investigation, arguing with Lucifer in the public eye. Thankfully, she went for 'quietly venomous' rather than the 'screaming banshee' route, otherwise all and sundry would have heard a key officer working the case declare that she's doing something for the sake of appearances.

There's still energy in her hands, and she's tempted to let it spark up enough to burn the man standing in front of her, but she just barely holds back. She's in public, he's already pissed off, and she isn't throwing a stick of dynamite on the bonfire that makes up his temper. She's starting to get sick of her charade of 'disbelieving human'; his condescension, rather than making her more determined to fuck with him, just makes her want to fuck him up, and the only way she'd stand a chance of doing that would be if she let her abilities properly loose.

She's not stupid: he'd probably still wipe the floor with her. But she'd definitely be able to get in a good sucker punch at the beginning and that would be a sweet, sweet victory for her.

Well, for as long as he didn't exact revenge for her keeping her abilities from him. And she got a lurch in her gut whenever she thought about the possible outcome, which when combined with her sneaking suspicion that he'd view her secret as a 'betrayal', thus leaving him morally free in his books to exact punishment - yeah, she was going to put off revealing her ability for now. Hell, for as long as she could, if she had her way.

"I don't like it," He scowls at her, trying to bend her to his will as he does everyone else.

Too bad she's not in the mood (though when is she ever?) to play along. "Yeah, well, we regular mortals have to follow the rules. We don't get to pick and choose which ones do and don't apply to us, and despite the bad taste I get, it's what I have to do." She gives a lone, harsh bark of laughter. "And despite what crime shows would have you believe, Lucifer, 'gut feeling' is not an adequate reason to sway a court. I need real, hard proof that he wasn't the one to commit the crime; which, since the kid has already admitted to having sex with her, means that the only way to properly clear him is to find her real killer. Which I can't do, unless Ty goes into custody." She takes a deep breath.

There are two options at this stage: brush him off now that she's given him an explanation (more of an explanation then he deserves, frankly, given the way he's been treating her today) or push him towards Huntley and get him to explain how this is nothing, it's not going to stick, I'll get that silly lead detective to see that it's not you, as soon as bail is posted you'll be out, you're not even going to proper jail!

 _Find the motivation, find the angle._ "Look, you want to help Huntley because you know he's innocent, right?"

"Well, of course! Why would I want to help someone who-"

"Then go over there and explain to him-" She is not sitting through another speech on the 'obvious' moral deficiencies of people as he also manages to wax lyrical about how incredible he is. She's been subjected to that plenty, thank you very much, and she thinks he, somehow, thinks it hasn't sunk in yet. "- that an innocent man would cooperate with the police and answer all their questions, because he has nothing to fear and the truth will out. Showing that he has faith in our justice system won't detract from his image, and his agent can no doubt spin this so he comes out of it still the golden boy of football, capiche?"

Morningstar is eyeing her, eyes narrowed and calculating, seemingly intent on finding her soul. Chloe straightens up, meeting him eye to eye. "And just why would that help the man, Detective? He's not an idiot, despite the image endemic to his sport. He surely knows all this-"

"Yeah, but he's panicking, more than a bit shocked, and not thinking straight right now. And you, somehow, have become this person that he thinks will make everything disappear like dust in the wind. Well, newsflash, no matter what favours you have or how much pull you have, this isn't going to just all 'blow over'.  _A girl is dead._ That will not be swept under the rug, and-"

"But you don't think Ty thinks that, do you?"  _Shit, misplaced emotions, this wasn't at all to do with Huntley._ "You said it yourself: the man's not thinking straight. But you don't think that's because of self-interest; you'd be treating him with a lot more disdain and contempt then you are. No, you think it's because he was emotionally attached to the girl . . . and he discovered her floating corpse this morning. That's why he's panicking, and unsettled, and whatever other emotions you humans subscribe to. No, this is about something else entirely." He cocks his head, not coming any closer, but still seeming to. Chloe feels rooted to the spot, unable to move a muscle as the man verbally boxes her in. "What is this really about, Detective?"

 _Abort, abort._ "Talk to Huntley. I'm going to start this investigation." She brushes past him, Ally Thornton's cellphone still clutched in one hand.

Lucifer, mercifully, lets her go with only a disappointed call in her direction.

(She's generous. She gives him five minutes to explain things to Huntley before arresting him, making sure that she does it with other cops witnessing and the rest of the partygoers cheerfully oblivious. Going by the pinched, but not pissed off, look on the football player's face, he's making note of that fact. Lucifer, watching just out of arms reach of Huntley, doesn't take his eyes off her for a moment.)

* * *

Deborah McCall.

When the agent had dumped the file about the girl on that desk of his, she had an inkling of what she was dealing with. They may have called her a crazy, obsessive fan (and ex-girlfriend, which sure said something _interesting_ about Huntley's judgement) but she was pretty sure that wasn't the whole picture.

The girl was desperately in love with Huntley, and had been for years.

But that neither made her psychotic or a killer.

Case in point: her car just exploded, and she was absolutely terrified when it happened, and was now sitting in the back of an ambulance shocked into compliance. If the girl had really committed a murder, then she would have been wailing like anything about how she was being targeted next, and how she should be given protection, and just who she thought was responsible - instead of sitting, shocked near senseless, in an ambulance as she answered questions from the police without hesitation. And the way she felt whenever Huntley was brought up-

"I love Ty! I would  _never_ hurt him! And we're getting back together; it never lasts!"

-there wasn't a negative emotion in there. Plenty of love, lust, devotion, admiration, respect, and happiness; but there was no anger or betrayal or hurt at the thought of Ty with someone else.

 _Either this girl genuinely thinks they are fated to be and that means she will be 'the one', or she thinks their bond is above sex. Or she could just genuinely be that selfless, and think that since they weren't together at the time, then it was alright._ Which most sensible people would think, but emotions are never that logical. And she really was taking this surprisingly well.

"Well if you two are so fated to be, so dedicated, then just why would loverboy sleep with another woman, hm?" Lucifer spoke up, eyes fixed on the girl sheltering under a blanket.

"Ty . . . slept with her, yes." Oh, there's the agony. Compartmentalising? "Which really hurt me. Like,  _really_ hurt me." Yeah, she knew. It really had hurt her, and she was still feeling that pain right now. "And we'll be talking about it. Proper, grown up, adult talk about it. Because he needs to understand that he hurt me, which isn't alright, but that I forgive him, because that's what you do when you're in love." She's gone back to peppy, even if her emotions are a bit slower off the mark to catch up.

Lucifer isn't buying it. "Really? You're going to forgive the man when he gave his virginity away to someone else, someone he had never met before that night - someone who wasn't you? You, who had years of history, dozens of memories - and you expect us to believe that there's no anger, no need to extract vengeance lingering in you?" He leans closer, looking the girl in the eyes. "Tell me, Deborah - what is it you desire most in the world?"

The girl falls into it pretty easily. Chloe isn't sure if that's because of the emotional upheavals of the last couple of days, or if she just isn't complex or strong-willed enough to get around the compulsion. "I want to marry Ty and have lots of children together." McCall snaps out of it as Lucifer leans back, looking a little embarrassed; but there is pride in her straight spine and raised head. This girl knows exactly what she wants, and is doing everything to get it. Going a bit too far at times, yeah, but she's honest about what she wants and goes for it. Chloe can work with that.

"Ms McCall, I know this isn't the best time, but we do need to know if you have an alibi for the night Ally Thornton was killed." Looking at the girl, Chloe can understand why Huntley keeps going back to her. She's pretty, and clearly devoted to Huntley, as well as being determined about getting what she wants. For a guy who has had to deny a lot of things that people his age take for granted, that sort of thing must be quite attractive.

"Well, after I saw him there with that . . .  _girl-"_ She isn't enough of a bitch to call her a name, but her tone makes it clear that if she weren't dead there would be a far different word on her lips. "-I was so angry and hurt." A large sniff interrupts her recitation. Lucifer rolls his eyes, but Chloe steps on his foot hard enough for him to shut it, even with the wounded look he gives her. "So I went to where I always go when I'm feeling sad: my Froyo shop."

She is so glad that she stepped on the man's foot earlier. Her foot is still there, and she barely thinks before stamping on his again, making sure to keep asking questions while doing so. Otherwise, the man is going to get them stuck here calming the girl down for the next thirty minutes as she goes into a Lucifer-induced meltdown.

* * *

Chloe quietly acknowledges in the back of her head that if it wasn't for her and Lucifer distracting the girl, and assuming the bomb was on a timer and not activated by someone pushing a button, then they stopped this from becoming an investigation into two murders.

She's certainly not going to inform the girl on just how close she came to death.

* * *

" _Froyo."_ Lucifer sounds about as disgusted as she would be if someone tried to serve her a meal of garbage. "If there's one thing I hate, it's when people take something as luxurious and sinfully decadent as ice cream, and then turn it into a healthy, nutritious meal that even has options for the lactose-intolerant. What is wrong with humans?"

McCall is spending literal hours eating froyo and crying into it, alone. That is . . . pretty sad, really. Surely she would have a friend or two whose shoulder she could cry on instead? Better for her alibi, of course - video surveillance collected within 24 hours doesn't lie - but hardly the best thing for her mental health. If you're on your own and just circling round and round those negative feelings, how the hell are you going to get yourself out without someone to throw you a line? Still, McCall had seemingly done so within hours of her meltdown, which is quite impressive, really.

"Well, she definitely isn't our murderer."

"Are you sure? There has to be  _something_ wrong with the woman. Nothing else could explain why she would spend that much-"

"Do you really want to keep talking about this? I could give you a thousand and one reasons as to why this is acceptable in LA. And, besides, an . . . obsession with Froyo doesn't exactly make her a murderous woman scorned." Chloe keeps talking, barrelling on before he can derail their conversation into whatever topic he thinks is pertinent - how the place is killing his soul or something equally ridiculous, she expects. "But there's a lead on who blew up the car, so that's who we're going after now."

Lucifer straightens up, eyes glinting with that dark menace he always tucks behind his mask of irreverent ADD snob. "And just who was brazen enough to blow up a car in the middle of the day?"

"Ronnie Hillman." She shows him a picture of the woman in question; dark hair swept back by the breeze of her movement, confidence (maybe arrogance) obvious in her posture. She's attractive, no mistake, but there's something a bit . . . broken about her, it seems to Chloe. "She popped up on the security cameras just minutes after the explosion going in the opposite direction at speed." He rests a hand on her shoulder, almost hanging over her to see the picture she was perfectly willing to hold out to him.  "She's a fixer; if someone has a problem - drugs, blackmail, whatever - they approach Hillman and she fixes it for them." Idly, she brushes his hand off her shoulder, keeping the movement as natural as she can. He wouldn't notice if she leeched some of his energy, he's got so much of it, but there are so many potential complications with her draining a  _fallen angel_ that it's just easier to avoid even the chance of it happening. "Problem is, whenever we've tried to get her in the past for some of her less . . . legal activities in the name of her job, she's lawyered up and we've ended up with nothing."

She turns to face Lucifer head on, eyes meeting without difficulty despite their height difference. "And that's where you come in."

Lucifer looks slightly taken aback. "Just  _how,_ exactly, do I come in to it here, Detective? As an active consultant for the LAPD-"  _You're on probation, a trial run - stop making out like you're here to stay!_ "- I would never dare impugn its record by committing an illegal act, even if it were to catch the illusive Ronnie Hillman," He finishes faux-sanctimoniously, false innocence dripping from his voice.

"And you're not going to." She informs him sternly, eyes watching for the- yep, there it is. That's the spark of defiance in his eyes that tells her he's tempted to do it now if for no other reason than because she told him not to.

She's been saddled with a wildcard who isn't even a proper police officer indefinitely.

And did she mention that he's also the fallen angel Lucifer with enough issues to give a librarian a broken back?

And that she's likely soon going to be on his shit list for not telling him about her abilities?

_So screwed._

"You're going to pretend to hire her to fix a problem; like playing a role." She explains, heart sinking. He's looking disinterested, and she realises why a moment later.

He doesn't lie.

How the fuck are they supposed to do this sting operation if Lucifer can't lie?

(Though, for all she knows, he can lie but he prefers to not, rather than it being something like the traditional stories about the fey wherein they are literally unable to lie.)

"Actually, no." She decides a moment later out loud, making the executive decision to avoid  _that_ particular clusterfuck. "That wouldn't work. We'll have to-"

"And just why wouldn't it work, Detective?" Wait, what?

Chloe looks up at Lucifer, dragging her gaze from where she'd been staring blankly at her screen. Shouldn't he be happy about this?

His expression says that no, no he isn't. He looks more as though she'd spat in his food right in front of him; clear disgust with a side of affront and the main course of indignity.

"Um, because you're a probationary officer who hasn't even read the guidelines you're meant to be operating under? Because there are far too many wildcards already involved without throwing you into the mix?" She shifts her weight back onto one foot, subconsciously challenging him with her folded arms. If anything, he stands even straighter in reaction to her movement.

"That's not what's stopping you now, though, is it? We've operated with barely any difficulties-" _'Barely any difficulties?' What universe are you living in?_ "-for multiple cases now, with you knowing full well that I am, as you put it, a wildcard." He hasn't looked away from her, has kept his eyes unerringly on her face the entire time, and her hackles are starting to go up in response.

(She has never appreciated being threatened, be it verbal or otherwise. And no matter what Lucifer  _says_ , he's treating her right now like a cat treats a mouse, like something to be played with and then killed at his leisure.)

"So what suddenly changed, Detective, that you no longer think I'll be able to handle an undercover operation that is likely our only chance of apprehending this woman." There's flickering fire in his eyes, and his emotions are muted once more, as though he's preparing himself for whatever she says, and can do anything in response.

Well, best to tell the truth.

"What's changed, Lucifer, is that I recalled you saying that you don't lie." She arches an eyebrow, shifting her weight to her other foot. "And, y'know, an undercover operation requires a lot of lying."

Lucifer is still staring at her; fine. Fine. Let him take from that what he will. She's only told the truth, after all, and it's not even something that she shouldn't know - he told her himself. That she believes him and is incorporating this strength/weakness (aren't they all?) into her planning is, presumably, what's giving him the bluescreen of does not compute.

Thankfully, he either gets over it very quickly or compartmentalises like a boss, since he's back with her pretty swiftly.

"True enough, Detective. But if you don't use me, then the whole thing will be a bust, won't it?" He's eyeing her carefully, watching for any little tells. Obligingly, she clenches her jaw just a bit, and averts her eyes from his own.  _Satisfaction_ springs to life in him.

Bingo. For a man that prides himself on his insight into others, she doesn't find it particularly hard to read him (even if she is, technically, cheating by using her ability).

"That's why you've not been able to get her in the past, isn't it? You've used only police officers, only people who can't let go of their protocol; or, if it wasn't that, people that this Ronnie Hillman had information on and could identify," He adds generously when he spots the annoyance on her face.

"This time-"

"Would be no different if you don't use a wildcard," He challenges her, not backing down in the least when her own temper starts firing up at being interrupted. "The fact of the matter is, Detective, that you need to do something new if you want to get this woman, and I am definitely new."

He looks smug now, convinced that she can't deny him. And, fair enough, it's a good point ( _and the exact reason it was her original plan_ ) but the point of this whole thing is-

"Lucifer - you don't lie. And this whole thing is about lying! How would that work?"

He seems to finally note her exasperation . . . and then blithely ignores it. "Why, I'll legitimately hire her, of course! Not a lie in there at all, and nothing that can trip us up further down the line. After all, if it's a genuine case then there can be no claims of . . . foul play if this goes into your ridiculous court system." There's more than a bit of a sneer in there, but her priority is more on his so-called solution.

"And just what would you hire her for, Lucifer?"

"Someone has been impersonating me, Detective. Someone has been using  _my_ name and  _my_ reputation, has been _slandering_ my name and reputation, and it is unacceptable."

 _Ordinary humans can't see hellfire or whatever the fuck that is in the eyes of the Devil._ "How long has this been going on? Why didn't you come to me before?" Try as she might, she can't keep a smidgeon of hurt from seeping into her tone.

 _Damn. I'm actually getting attached, despite knowing he could disembowel me without breaking a sweat or blinking an eye._ That was going to become a problem.

"For one thing, Detective, you're a homicide officer. So, really, there is no way you should - could, I mean - become embroiled in my issue. For another-" He slinks closer to her, eye fire dampening to his typical smoulder as he gazes just at her. "I thought you loathed my being, from the top of my oh so sexy head to my perfectly polished shoes."

Chloe took in a deep breath, then obfuscated as best she could. "Lucifer, I do not loath you. At times, strongly dislike wouldn't be out of place, but the majority of the time I can at the least tolerate you. But that isn't important; you bring a different perspective to the table, which can be what lets us break a case. So-" She cleared her throat, stepping purposefully around him and striding towards her car. "-anything that impedes your efforts towards a successful partnership or could compromise your reputation is my concern as your . . . partner." There's a wince on her face with that last word, and the man's face lights up in response to her own reaction.

"Detective! I should have known that this was all a cunning ruse; you're far too sensible to not want to sleep with me." A lascivious smile and a cheeky wink complete the invitation.

Chloe ignores it. (Again. For the zillionth time.) "So that's the basics of our plan: you'll arrange a meeting with Hillman, where you'll discuss your issue. You'll hire her to fix it for you, she'll do so, and when you've got the proof and she's there, we can arrest her."

"Can I wear a wire? Ooh, ooh, can I have a codeword? Something so that you'll know the deal's 'gone south', or whatever it is they say." They aren't even having the same conversation at the moment.

Eventually, Chloe manages to make it clear to him what the plan is, and also manages to not storm out in a huff at his glib, smug, flirtatious comments that he seems to automatically make.

Self control, thy name is Chloe Decker.

* * *

When she was a kid, her mom always read a story to her at night - fairy tale, myth, fable -, gave her a kiss on her forehead, then whispered in her ear, "Think on it before you sleep, sweetheart."

In hindsight, it was a brilliant idea: gave her mind something to focus on just before sleep, and made her think about things that she hadn't really thought about before.

One in particular stuck with her. Jeez, it was so long ago she can't even remember the actual name, but it was one of the most effective ones. It went, roughly, something like this.

_There was a girl - let's call her . . . Alice. Now, Alice lived with her stepmother and stepsister; her father was always away doing . . . something (it wasn't important, barring that he was never there). And, just like in Cinderella, Alice was mistreated by her stepfamily. So one day, Alice was sent by the stepmother and the stepdaughter - let's call them Iris and Zoe, to make things a bit easier - to get some water from the well. It was a hot day, and the well was several miles away, but Alice did not complain and made it there. On arriving, she noticed an old woman labouring up the hill. Alice finished gathering her water, then helped the old woman up. A polite nod, and she turned to leave._

_"Wait!" Called the woman, still huddled under her cloak. "Young lady, could you please give me some water? My old bones are too tired, and ache from the exertions of the day, to use the well. Please, some water."_

_Now Alice was a nice girl, and a polite girl, so she did just that and added some kind words for good measure. Abruptly, the woman sprang to her feet and threw off her cloak - for this was not some frail old woman, but one of the fae. The request and the help had been a test, and the fae was pleased by the generosity of the girl. "Child, you are kind in both word and action; and so, your words shall reap kindness in turn." With a wave of a hand over Alice, there was a brief flash of light, and the fairy was gone._

_Alice, a slightly oblivious girl, simply continued on with her task - gathering water and returning to the small cottage where she lived._

_"It took you long enough, girl! What time do you call this?" Iris demanded as soon as Alice entered the cottage._

_"I'm sorry, stepmother," Alice replied softly. That wasn't particularly notable or unusual. What_ was  _notable_ _and unusual was the topaz, diamond, and rose that fell out of her mouth when she spoke._

_Eventually, the whole story was spun for Iris and Zoe. Iris, being both older and craftier, managed to convince Zoe to go to the well tomorrow so that she too could be blessed with this ability. Then, after commanding Alice to clean up the bounty of flowers, the selfish pair gathered up the jewels and occasional coins for their own edification as Alice prepared a late dinner._

_The next day, Alice remained at the cottage cleaning the floor as Zoe flounced out the door to the well. She was determined that she too would be given this strange ability; she wished to marry the local squire's son, and knew that they had more than a few debts. Surely they would gladly welcome her into their family if she could make all their problems vanish just by talking a bit!_

_Zoe spent all day at the well, getting more and more frustrated and hot as person after person came - but not one of them was an old woman asking for help. Finally, at sunset, she turned on her heel and made her way back down the hill, her own pail half full of water._

_"Excuse me, miss, but can I have some of your water?" The speaker was a woman only a handful of years older than Zoe, who was cradling a babe on her hip. "The littlest one has been so fussy, I haven't had a chance to go myself!" She continued, exhaustion clear on her face._

_Zoe, piqued by her wasted day and the demise of her dreams, replied, "Get it yourself! If you weren't so lazy, and probably loose, you'd have no problem getting your own water!" She swung her pail and continued on her way, sparing the woman not even a glance._

_This was, of course, a terrible decision, for as I'm sure you've guessed, the young woman with a child was the same fae from the previous day. And she was most offended by Zoe's actions and words. "Child, you are cruel in both word and action; and so, your words shall reap cruelty in turn." With a wave of a hand over Zoe, there was a brief flash of light, and the fairy was gone._ _Zoe continued on her way back to the house, fuming all the while, and paying no mind to the strange encounter so incensed was she by her foiled dreams._

_"Well? Did it work?" Iris demanded as soon as Zoe entered the cottage._

_"No, it didn't," She sulked. This wasn't particularly notable or unusual. What_ was  _notable and unusual was the rotten egg, spider, and snake that fell out of her mouth when she spoke._

_Eventually, after much hysteria and accusations, the whole story was spun for a pacing Iris and an unobtrusive Alice._

_"You stupid girl! How could you be so idiotic?!" Iris raged, pacing the room in a fine fury. Zoe had been commanded to sit quietly, an action which irked her something fierce, with Alice cleaning up the results of her outbursts. "I'll just have to find the fae tomorrow and fix your mess."_

_And so the next day, Iris and Zoe went to the well once more. But this time, there was no person who needed help; not an elder, nor a child, not a mother nor a cripple. Tired, frustrated, and more than a little bit angry, Iris and Zoe went back to the cottage as the sun set, scheming furiously about what they could do to fix this blunder._

_But when they arrived at the cottage . . . Alice was gone._

_All that she had left behind was a note, informing them that she was not coming back, and that she would use her newfound wealth for the benefit of herself and others._

_And from then on, no matter what they did, Iris and Zoe never saw Alice again - and neither girl ever lost her fae gift._

If you take it at face value, then it seemed to be a tale saying that one should be kind to strangers and give help when it is asked for; and that you shall be rewarded, in some way.

But her mother pointed out a couple of things she had missed when she brought this up.

"Darling - while that is certainly true, there's something you seem to be missing. As much as Alice's new ability gave her the freedom to do what she wanted away from her abusers, it also cursed her." Chloe kept watching her mother, eyes intent and so very focused on her use of the word 'ability'. "Alice would never be able to speak in front of those she didn't trust explicitly, would always have that question itching in the back of her head - do they love me because of my ability or because of me?"

"And we can't overlook the physical implications, either, sweetie. Roses have thorns, and jewels and coins have sharp, cutting edges - particular on the soft mouth. It would cause the poor girl physical pain whenever she spoke; physical pain that wasn't temporary, or a one-off."

Penelope smiled slowly, the faintest trace of her lipstick on her teeth. (Chloe, long used to it, ignored her own memory of her mother laughingly telling her when she was younger that it was the blood of her enemies'.) "Words, darling, are very special and powerful. They can bring great joy and great misery; so choose your words wisely, sweetheart." Then with a final smile, she sent her daughter off to school.

Chloe took one more lesson from that story and her mother: truth was more special and precious than lies, yes, but you should be careful with it nonetheless.

Because the truth hurts.

* * *

Ronnie (Veronica, technically, but she has refused to be known as that since _Veronica Mars_ came out) Hillman, for a woman who was just caught abducting a person by a police officer, is remarkably calm.

Chloe doesn't like it. This is both not in the script and unnerving, which tends to mean one thing: she's got a trump card in her pocket.

Fortunately, she can get her off-balance and keep her that way with her own ability.

"We know you were involved in the explosion of Deborah McCall's car. And that, Ms Hillman, makes me ask myself the question - if you were 'fixing' her, what else have you fixed recently? And the only thing that McCall is linked to that is within your area of expertise would be Ty Huntley. Ty Huntley, who was recently arrested on suspicion of killing Ally Thornton."

There -  _angerpaingriefsadnessloss._ She's got her.

"And you knew Ally Thornton, didn't you?" Chloe softens her tone and stance, less 'interrogator' and more 'one of the sisterhood'. "Do you know who killed her, Ronnie?" It's a deliberate gamble using her first name, making it more personal - but the woman is caught up in her emotions and it just causes a slight spike in her grief.

"It was that Deborah girl. She found out, somehow, what had happened between Ally and Ty, and she went after Ally in revenge." She's clenching her hands, eyes fixed on a distant point as her posture crumbles just slightly. "Ally didn't deserve that. She was just doing her job, it wasn't her fault that McCall is a crazy bitch."

Lucifer perks up. "I'm sorry, what do you mean she was 'doing her job'?"

Hillman is reluctant, but she isn't an idiot. And, well, there's just that slightest bit of  _fuck you_ in her demeanour at the insinuation that this girl - who was clearly someone she cared for - was a prostitute. "Ally was working for me. You know how it is-" She sends a sly look in Chloe direction, the wry turn down of her mouth a clear message of solidarity. "-a young actress from out of town here to make it big; only to find out that, sorry, you're just not quite pretty enough, or you've got the wrong accent, or one of a million reasons. When I met her, she was getting pretty desperate; she was nearly out of money and she certainly didn't have enough to go back home even if her pride would have let her. So I offered her a job, told her she could work for me."

"And just why would you do that, hm? Out of the goodness of your heart?" Lucifer is pissed, and bugger if Chloe know why, but it's making him even more cutting than usual.

Hillman, however, is looking for a fight and now that she's got one she isn't backing down. "Because I've been exactly where she was and I didn't get a hand and it fucked me over. Women get treated like shit unless they demand otherwise, something that we're taught from birth we shouldn't do. Women have to keep their mouths shut and look pretty, and if we can't do that, or if we're too pushy, or too bossy, or not exactly what a man wants at that moment then we're fucked." She sneers at him, raking her eyes over his body with penetrating slowness. "I helped her because I could see what was coming next in her life, and I'm not so cruel as to enjoy watching other people go through what I did."

She turns to Chloe, snubbing a dangerously quiet Lucifer. "I had to claw my way up with my business, and I don't regret it; it was the only option I'd accept."

"And Ally?" Chloe prompted quietly, gently directing her towards a stool at the bar. "How did she feel about your business?"

"Ally was . . ." Hillman sighed, eyes closing for a brief moment. "She was young, and optimistic; sure, she'd had a bit of that beaten out of her from all the rejections, but she was still hopeful. So she didn't like what this business was, but I kept the worst of it from her and gave her all the support I could. I protected her," She added, practically daring them with her expression to challenge her."It was her first job and she was nervous, but I told her that it was just like acting; you just play a role, do your job, and get paid at the end."  _Why, that sounds nothing like prostitution at all._

"So she was hired to . . . sleep with Ty?" Chloe's voice goes quietly incredulous at the end; Huntley's reputation was well-known and established, and surely it would have been a tad blinkered to just assume that simply propositioning the man would make him ditch his morals (and clothes).

"No. My agency was contracted for our number three special - blackmail." A wan smile, with a hint of that viciousness that Hillman was renowned for. "Slip him a roofie, get naked, whip out a selfie stick and voila - instant blackmail."

"Blackmail? Who'd want to blackmail Ty?" Chloe's look of innocent confusion is nearly perfect; if you didn't see that self-deprecating glint in her eye, you'd think she was actually on the level.

"That's not how this works, Detective: I want to know when you're arresting Deborah McCall for murder, and then you can have all the juicy little details you want about this case. Sure, hiring someone for blackmail is bad, but murder is an entirely new story."

"McCall? Oh, I'm so sorry, Ronnie - we're not arresting her."  _Watch her, feel for it, and then-_

"What?! But she's guilty! She's the one that killed Ally!"  _She deserves punishment, is what you really mean, but let's not start talking about that when Lucifer is right here._

"McCall has an ironclad alibi: there is no way she could have killed Ally."

At that, Hillman crumbled; emotionally, that is. What Chloe had previously been picking up from her just about doubled in intensity, as though she'd been holding off on really letting herself feel when she was on her mission for vengeance.

"But it had to have been her, it couldn't have been anyone else, why would-"

"Ronnie.  _Ronnie._ " Chloe holds off from shaking the woman as all the movies tell her she should, and just repeats her name until she's got her attention back. "This is important. Who hired you to blackmail Ty?"

"Joe Hanson." She states baldly, too wrung out from her emotions to bother holding back.

Chloe and Lucifer exchanged looks. That . . . changed things.

It had been Hanson who put them on to McCall. He'd also made sure to give them the worst possible view on their relationship. (Which had not been borne out on meeting the girl.)  
It had been Hanson who was Huntley's agent. He'd also confessed under Lucifer's influence to wanting to be the greatest agent of all time. (And 'great' had never been a synonym for 'morally good'.)  
It had been Hanson who had hired Hillman. He'd made sure to manipulate the woman too, her gut was saying, since she was so convinced that McCall was guilty - so certain that she'd placed a bomb in her car.

That was a few too many connections for the man to not be hip deep in this mess.

* * *

The kid who had impersonated Lucifer got the book thrown at him.

Justin Long, from Sherwood Oaks, was an idiot who had dropped out of college. On getting mistaken (somehow) for Lucifer, he'd decided to go with it.

Which, if it had just been the one night, would be kind of understandable - who doesn't want to be someone else once in a while?

He didn't.

And he got bolder, too. (The fuckwit.)

The kid had set up a modelling agency, pitched a web series, performed in a rap battle in public, racked up a $2000 debt at Zany Wings (how? _Why_?), wrecked a honeymoon suite in Boise (she's . . . fairly certain Lucifer hasn't even been to the state before; either way, he's almost certainly boycotting it now) and, most offensive of all to Lucifer, had sullied his reputation as a sexual partner without peer (Chloe kept a neutral face throughout this entire thing, because she might want to laugh but she equally wanted to live a little longer without missing any body parts).

Which, when translated through the eye of the law, came out as identity fraud, identity theft, false advertising, and burglary (non-violent).

He was getting jail time for it.

In a world on his side, the kid - clearly an idiot - would have gotten off with a slap on the wrist and a stern warning. In this world, there was a quietly furious Lucifer who was directly linked to being on the side of angels - well, police, but in the courts it's the same thing - and wanted his pound of flesh (preferably literally).

Justin Long, from Sherwood Oaks, would think a bit more carefully in the future, that was for sure.

(Or if he didn't, Darwinism would take care of him.)

* * *

Chloe is more than slightly relieved when she meets up with Lucifer just before their planned 'arrest' of Huntley so that they can force Hanson's hand.

For one thing, he was there on time. For another, he'd stopped radiating that seeping anger that had been like a thick miasma around him for the past couple of days; it had gotten old fast.

"Well, you look less like you want to kill people," She greeted him with a wave, acknowledging his own broad smile.

"No more than usual, Detective. I had a wonderful talk with Linda, and it has really cleared things up for me," He smirked down at her, enjoying her obvious confusion.

To be fair, it was pretty obvious. "Who's Linda?"

"You must remember her, Detective! The lovely Doctor Linda, from our first case together, hm?"

It's ringing a bell, with that little addition; what was her name? Linda, Linda - "Linda Martin?"

"Mm, that's her."

Fortunately, before she has to muster up the energy to berate him about using someone he met on a case for his own personal issues (which, y'know, contradicts a couple of those guidelines he's _meant to be playing by_ ) their back-up/witnesses/entourage of uniformed officers arrive. They've already been briefed on what's happening and what they need to do - keep quiet and don't contradict what either she or Lucifer says, really - so they all hustle into the building, Chloe making sure to breeze past the receptionist before they have a chance to waylay them and stop this whole show from opening.

Lucifer has tucked away the wild grin she expected, instead showing only his typical smirk. But there's no amusement in his eyes, just the fanatical burn of a devout believer seeing his creed practiced. She's really, really hoping that it's for justice, and not punishment; there's only so much weird shit she's willing to put up with and covering for the guy is a complete pain in the ass.

Bursting in on that meeting gives her inner rebel a bit of glee when she spots the shocked look on the executives faces. Clearly, interruptions here were only along the lines of  _would you like some more coffee, sir?_ variety.

Joe Hanson looks the same as the others, if a bit more pale. (But not for long.)

"So sorry to just barge in here, gentlemen, but we need to take young Ty here in for a bit more questioning," Chloe loudly proclaimed over the hubbub of confused mutterings and clomping boots. A decisive nod towards the back up is all it takes to have a pair advancing on a nervous Ty.

"Now, wait a minute, you can't do that!" Joe Hanson exclaims, standing as though his physical presence will reinforce his words.

"Ty here is our chief suspect and we have a few more questions to ask him down at the precinct; maybe if you're lucky the paps outside won't get too many good shots," Chloe ends callously.

"But, but - what about Deborah?! She did it, I know she did!" Hanson seems to be whipping himself up into a frenzy of panic, frantically grasping for any available option but what's just happened. Chloe is just here to help those plans go up in flames - and if she happens to be holding the lighter, so what?

"I'm sorry, Mr Hanson, but Deborah has a watertight alibi; she was with a friend the entire night and nowhere near that party." She's lying, but there's enough truth in there that she doesn't even hesitate saying the words.

"I- no! That's not true! She was at the party!"

Beside her, Lucifer perks up at seeing just how manic Hanson is getting . . . maybe with a little bit of a push from Chloe, admittedly, but the man's doing 80% of the work on his own.

"Witnesses don't place her there, Mr Hanson, and as the Detective said - _her_ alibi is watertight." Lucifer couldn't help putting the slightest bit of emphasis on her, and it's enough to have the agent practically dripping with sweat as his 'worst case scenario' function goes into overdrive.

But he's not biting enough just yet, so- "Let's go, boys." Chloe starts to herd Huntley towards the door, keeping herself behind him under the pretext of getting him out sooner, rather than waiting for Hanson to finally take the bait.

"Joe! You just said that you'd protect me! Do something!" Huntley, bless his oblivious little head, is just about to hyperventilate. And- oh, they really did pick the perfect timing to barge in, didn't they? Hanson had literally just proclaimed in front of his client - his  _prize_ client, as he says - as well as his colleagues that he'd protect him. If he doesn't do something now, he is screwed.

"She was at the party, because I saw her there!" It rushes out of him, and suddenly all eyes are back on the agent once more. He's still sweaty, still anxious - and he's still lying. Still holding back a bit of information that will give them all the answers.

"I know I said that I didn't go to the party, but that's more because - well, look at me," He shrugs, self-deprecating, a wry smile on his face. Beside her, Lucifer has gone dangerously still. He's also been quiet far too long for him not to be gearing up for something incredibly violent (she just hopes it's verbal, and not physical).

"Me, at a twenty-two year old's party? I'd have nothing to do. But, I dropped by for a few minutes, wanted to say hi on my way home - but when I was walking up to the front door-" He's really getting into it now, seemingly starting to believe his own bullshit. "- I saw Deborah, lurking around by the window, peering in. I went over to say something about the restraining order, but she spotted me coming and ran off."

"So you lied to the police because of your . . . image?" Lucifer is almost sneering at the man as he speaks. Fuck, she hasn't seen him this pissed since Barnes.

"It sounds stupid, I know, but it made sense to me at the time. And then when I realised what I'd done later, I couldn't take it back!" Hanson spreads his hands, appealing to all and sundry for understanding.

He certainly isn't getting it from her or Lucifer. "The problem with your little story, Mr Big Hero Agent, is that you're forgetting a little detail that fucks it all up."

(Lucifer's magnetism is a powerful thing; if it weren't for that, she just knows that one of those strait-laced agents would have gasped over the swearing.)

"Oh? I'm sure I can explain if you just tell me what that is," Hanson's still quivery, but he's found his balls and his voice is noticeably steadier.

"Ronnie Hillman told us that you hired her to get you blackmail on Ty." Lucifer uses the sentence like a knife, slipping it so very carefully into Hanson. Not his back, sure, but . . . probably between his ribs on the front, angled towards the heart she fancies.

"What? Why would my own agent want to blackmail me? It doesn't make any sense!" Tyler bursts out, reminding everyone that, yes, he  _is_ still there and has both a working mouth and pair of ears.

"Because he thought you were going to leave him," Chloe steps back in again. "Your contract with him is ending soon; we had it from his own lips. And, for whatever reason, he thought you were going to leave him."  _C'mon Ty, dig his grave a bit deeper . . ._

"What, because I went to an interview with a different agent?" His voice and expression are incredulous. Hanson's, on the other hand, are as stoic as he can get them - a contrast to his previous nerves.

(And underneath it, he is  _panicdesperationshameguiltanger._ She stops pushing his emotions; it's not needed any more, and no matter how he tries to spin this, he's guilty and there are so many witnesses it's a bit ridiculous.)

"That was Deborah's idea, I wasn't going to - you seriously planned to blackmail me?" Hurt saturates Huntley's voice.  _There's a reason it's called a stab in the back, dear,_ her mom's voice whispers in her ear.  _Because when you trust someone, you don't have a problem showing them your vulnerable, defenceless back._

"I- I can't lose you, Ty!" Hanson seems to have forgotten the rest of them in his desperation to keep his client. "Without you, I'm nothing!" Thing is, though, he doesn't really believe that - his emotions don't have even a whisper of  _doubt_ and his body language certainly doesn't say 'I lack confidence and/or faith in myself'.

"So Hanson here hired Hillman, who had Ally sleep with Ty and record it - the blackmail." Chloe hauls this Agatha Christie-esque murderer reveal back on track (they can quarrel about contracts all they like later on, when she's not there and doesn't have to put up with it).

"But the problem was, Ally changed her mind afterwards; decided not to give him the blackmail, that is," Lucifer throws Ty half a glance, his sights firmly locked on Hanson.

"And you didn't like that, did you," He's moved closer to Hanson in all this drama, and now he snares him with his power once more. But this time, the question is a little more closely linked to their murder investigation than 'What is it you most desire?'

"Why did you kill her?"

_Danger, danger . . ._

Hanson, proving what an absolute fuckwit he is when he fails to register both a) Lucifer's tone and b) Lucifer's body language, answers with zero tact. "I- I didn't mean to!" He's looking right at Lucifer, and the way he's doing it makes her question whether he can even see him or if he's looking at something else entirely. "She met me by the pool, like we'd planned, but then she said she wasn't going to give me her phone, said she'd realised he was a good guy and she wasn't going to go through with it."

He clenched his fists unconsciously. "I didn't want to kill her, I just wanted her phone. And I- I squeezed too hard. Stupid bitch."

Like she said - fuckwit.

"Her  _name,_ you abominable snake, was Ally Thornton. And you killed her because of what, pride? Greed?"

 _Those are deadly sins,_ Chloe realises in a distant corner of her mind, the rest of her focused on Hanson.

"If she'd just-"

And that's the last straw for Lucifer. 'Victim-blaming', apparently, is not something the Lord of Hell is fine with.

Temper finally unleashed, Lucifer pushes Hanson.

With all of his strength.

His  _supernatural_ strength.

Hanson goes flying to the other end of the conference room, through the massive glass wall, and over the guard rail to land on the floor below.

As you do.

(Why can't he make it a bit easier for her?)

 _Shit, he's still moving towards Hanson._ And he's certainly not looking at anyone or anything else.

Okay. You can do this.

Chloe steps in front of Lucifer, not letting him walk- no,  _stalk_ past her like a predator after its prey.

(It's one of the hardest things she's ever done.)

Then she starts speaking. And it isn't cleverly crafted, or the sort of poetry that is renowned centuries after it was spoken. But it was honest, and true, and it was not said in fear towards a person who had inspired it for centuries.

And it _worked_.

* * *

Spinning that little display into something believable is both easier and harder than she thought it would be; it's easy because none of the other witnesses really know what the fuck is going on and would like a nice, logical,  _reasonable_ explanation, please and thank you - and it's harder because she has to come up with a nice, logical, reasonable explanation.

She bullshits it, of course - recites something about friction (marble floors - so slippery, you know), leverage (it was all about the angle that it came from and how Hanson was positioned), strength (the guy works out, like, crazy often. Have you _seen_ him?) and then looks at them when they go to ask any more questions. It's a look that's a combination of  _how are you not getting this I spelled it out not two seconds ago_ and  _do you_ really  _want to know the answer to that?_

It works like a charm, and all those agents scurry off to gossip about the fall of one of their own - and, probably, to scramble for the contracts of the people he was representing.

Lucifer is by Huntley, which would be perfectly fine - if Huntley didn't look like he was half expecting Lucifer to hit him. Lucifer, of course, is back to his grinning, smooth self.

"- and now, I believe, you owe me a favour, Ty Huntley."

Ah. So that's why Huntley is so spooked. Considering that the last time Lucifer did him a favour he ended up getting accused of murder, she can understand why he's looking like he was just asked to disarm a bomb.

Regardless, they aren't needed here and terrorising the kid some more isn't going to win them any points.

"Lucifer, let's go." She's tempted to stride away from him having snapped the words, but it would feel a bit too much like expecting a dog to come to heel when called. Instead, she keeps her mouth shut, her arms crossed, and stares down Huntley, who seems to think he should be making a protest purely for the sake of appearances.

And maybe he should be; hell if she knows what societal norms insist on for this sort of etiquette thing. (Eh.) He takes the out she offers, and with a final nod at her, and a swift handshake with Lucifer, vamooses.

"Did you have to scare him away, Detective?" He complains lightly as he walks beside her. "We were having a nice conversation- well, an interesting conversation, at least."

"The kid looked about a sentence away from passing out, Lucifer," Try as she might, she can't quite hit 'strict' with her tone; she sounds more amused. (Well, it's not that far from the truth.) "If that's what you call interesting, then remind me to be boring."

"Oh, I don't think you could ever really be boring, Detective," He assures her, eyes gleaming with something a little bit  _more_ all the while.

"Still; it's good to see that you're cleaning up your mess," She banters right back at him, a half-smile of her own perched on her face.

"Sorry? How was any of this  _my_ mess?" He seems affronted. Weird.

"Um, well immediately after meeting you, Huntley finally breaks his years-long decision to remain a virgin? Admittedly, the blackmail and murder bit is a less typical happening when someone loses their virginity, but still," Seriously, did he not see that? Sure, it wasn't solely his fault, but at least a bit of the blame can be put on him, he who is immortalised in the Bible as a tempter. If it wasn't for him, then odds are pretty good that Huntley would have stuck to his well-known purity and not slept with Ally; but, then again, the girl was meant to dose him with a roofie - and refusing to sleep with a pretty girl is nothing like refusing to accept a drink from a pretty girl. It's all moot, anyway.

Lucifer had been considering that and, having come to whatever answer of his own, decided to share it with her, "Ally Thornton might have been killed by that cretin if she had reported her failure to get that little video of hers done,"

There's a measure of smugness in his voice - but there's speckles of guilt in his emotions. Uncomfortable, stomach churning, sweat-inducing guilt.

Well, she's not the man's shrink; let the poor woman try to get him more . . . normal. She certainly isn't volunteering. "Mm, maybe."

Lucifer doesn't take the bait - but at least that shit-eating grin of his isn't there right now.

Getting out the building without being noticed is easier than she expected; all the cameras are firmly focused on the dramatic reunion of Ty Huntley and Deborah McCall, complete with romance novel-worthy romantic kiss (dip included).

Lucifer seems as keen to stick around as she is, though probably for different reasons.

Still, having the last word is something she does enjoy, so-

"It wasn't your fault. You were a catalyst, not the cause. Save feeling guilty for when you're actually at fault." She gives him a firm, comforting pat on his shoulder, then strides off.

It takes him a good three seconds to call after her.

(She still counts it as a win.)

* * *

Back at home, with Trixie in bed pretending to sleep as she reads under the duvet with a torch, she gets a copy of the surveillance footage of the incident.

And she watches it, over and over again.

Her abilities are useless for this thing - cameras, particularly run-of-the-mill security cameras - don't pick up on energy changes, let alone emotional states; but that doesn't mean she can't watch.

Finally, at last, she has solid, tangible proof that she's not the only freak out there.

She hesitates, hems and haws, and then makes a decision.

It's saved on her computer, under a password locked file.

She labels it 'Pandora'. And she doesn't send it to her mother.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Other notes:  
> Made up the surname for the identity fraudster; pretty sure it's canon for his first name to be Justin, but couldn't recall (or easily find out) what his last name was. If anyone does happen to know, would appreciated being linked to your source :)
> 
> Extra information for those interested in the fairy tale:  
> This was partially inspired by the fic 'Treasures', by Icka M Chif. (To give you a small inkling of how much I enjoyed it, it's in my bookmarks :) )  
> I went for Alice since it was a bit of an Alice in Wonderland reference. After that, I couldn't help but go to the opposite end of the alphabet for Zoe. And Iris was chosen since it sounds similar to Eris, that being the Greek goddess of Jealousy (probably? Can't remember the classification of every deity in that pantheon).


	8. Bonding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Season 1, Episode 4 - Manly Whatnots

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter was a bit later than usual; have shifted house and been trying to find a job since the last one, plus this chapter just /did not/ want to be written. Thank you for your patience, particularly those I told that this would be out sooner :)
> 
> This is the most AU I've done for an episode yet, and am very keen for feedback. To me, it seemed plausible with the various changes I've made, but would love to hear what other people think :)
> 
> This was a bit more emotionally heavy than previous chapters, and I hope it rang true. Felt like it to me, but I've deluded myself about things previously, so . . .

The door had been locked when she got into the shower. It had very definitely been locked, because she had been alone all last night (Trixie was spending the night at a friend's, and Dan had volunteered to transport her there and back), and she had kept it locked since she'd gotten home. So the only people who should be getting in right now would be those who had a key.

So it was fine that she had heard the door open when she was in her bathroom. Absolutely fine.

The fact that she couldn't hear her daughter's cheerful chatter had absolutely nothing to do with why she was rushing to get some clothes on as quietly as possible, making sure to keep the shower running. Nothing at all.

Really, the fact that only Dan and her mother (plus one of the neighbours as a just-in-case and the precinct) had keys meant that it was fine. Completely, totally fine.

The intruder's emotions were-

Faded. And, now that she felt for it, she could feel a lighthouse.

_Lucifer._

How the hell did he break into her house?

Frustrated, Chloe slammed the shower off and marched out, gun drawn and loaded (safety on, she's not that reckless. Not that Lucifer would be able to tell at a glance).

"What are you doing here?" Her voice comes out as a sharp command, demanding attention and an immediate response.

Morningstar glances towards her, unperturbed by her firearm and positioning ( _feet planted, legs apart, shoulders down, eyes focused_ ) that was aimed right at him. "Why, good morning, Detective. Tell me," He cocks his head, unerringly flipping an omelette despite looking directly at her. "Are you always this polite first thing in the morning? Is that why Detective Douche fled your  _humble_ abode?"

Unbelievable. He breaks into her house, and then starts insulting her. "Why are you here, Lucifer?" She's acknowledged that she won't shoot him; now seems as good a time as any to put her gun away.

He winks, absolutely pouring on the charm. "What, I can't want to just see you? I'm hurt that you would think so low of me that I'd-"

"You've broken into my house and are now making an omelette. I get the feeling that there's a  _favour_ of yours involved somewhere along the line." Chloe is not up to dealing with this shit. She parks herself down at the little nook that gets the morning sun; she gets the feeling that's the farthest she can be whilst supervising the man in her kitchen safely.

"You wound me so deeply Detective," he bemoans, somehow managing to find her plates and cutlery without the omelette even having a chance to think about burning. Okay, she's a little impressed. But only a little. "I didn't break into your house! Why, it would be the height of stupidity to break into the house of a police officer when you know they're home, wouldn't it?" He smiles at her, mischief flashing in his eyes.

"Then how did you get in here? Did the door just  _magically_ open for you?" _Please, do tell me just how you got a key, so that I know who I get to cathartically yell at for a while_.

"Magic? Don't be ridiculous, Detective!  _Magic_ doesn't exist," He sneers at the mere possibility. She'd buy it, if it weren't for the glint in his eye or the way his emotions are practically buoyant when the word is mentioned. What . . .?

"Trickery and cunning, that's all there is to it," With a flourish, he presents to her half an omelette, complete with cutlery and still gently steaming.

Chloe eats slowly, eyeing him all the while as he tucks into his own half. On noticing her preoccupation with him, he slows his eating and then starts making as many ridiculously over-the-top sexual sounds, expressions, and actions as can be done with a fork and some food.

Turns out, there are quite a few.

Chloe keeps eating, resolutely keeping her expression blank as the light and fluffy omelette is consumed. "Thank you," she says at last, still looking at him ( _Politeness is free, sweetie, and it makes things so much easier. Why not?_ ). "But-"

And that's when Trixie comes bounding in, a little ball of sunshine and energy as she bounds over to hug her. "Mommy!"

And then she spots Lucifer. "Lucifer!" She's significantly more excited to see Lucifer than she is her own mother. Ouch.

"Chloe." Oh. Shit.

Dan's standing in the doorway, eyes flicking between her and Lucifer - complete with Trixie staring up at him adoringly and chattering a mile a minute - and thinking quite hard.

To be more accurate, thinking  _angershockfeardisdainhurtworryjealousy._

Well, hell if she knows why, but whatever - normal humans don't have to worry about the emotional states of their ex-partners when they are not verbally expressing them. And so . . .

"Dan, hi! How was things with Trixie?" Maybe if he gets sidetracked, she can divert this incredibly awkward-

"What is he doing here?"

No. No she cannot, it seems. If anything, her distraction seems to have made him more  _jealousangry_ than he was.

(Yay. What a fun, fun Sunday morning this is. She had a nice, relaxing night to herself. Well, it was fun while it lasted - and now, back to her regular life.)

"Detective Douche! I hadn't realised you were blind!" Too late; Lucifer has opened his mouth, and is glorying in Dan's mounting annoyance.

"Did you  _sleep_ with him?" Dan's settled on ignoring Lucifer - which, really, just consists of physically reacting to his barbs but not verbally responding to them. Which, dumb; Lucifer gets a reaction and doesn't have to even pretend to listen to Dan's response.

"Did you and Lucifer have a sleepover, Mommy?" And that is the perfect opening.

"No, sweetie," Chloe ushers Trixie away from the table and over to her room. There is no guilt in leaving the men behind. "Lucifer came over this morning and decided to make me breakfast, like a good friend." And those acting skills are really coming in handy; projection ensures that both men hear her. Whether they take her words at face value is another thing entirely, but oh well.

"Now, Trixie babe-" Closing the door behind her, Chloe crossed her arms as she looked down on her daughter, who was sitting innocently on her bed, head cocked just so and an expression of the utmost innocence on her face. "Just how did Lucifer have a key to get into this house?"

Trixie knows she's been caught. If her expression didn't give it away - she's good, but she's young and Chloe's her mother who just ambushed her - then her emotions certainly did;  _embarasssmentguiltmischiefcuriosity._

"Well . . ." Trixie's clutching her backpack to her, fiddling with a zipper on one side and avoiding eye contact all the while. "He  _might_ have found out about the spare key that we keep under the flowerpot 'round the side." Trixie peers up at her, expression full of hope and restrained happiness. "Did you guys have fun?"

"Trixie, why did you tell him about the key?" Carefully, Chloe sits down beside Trixie, tucking the little girl under her arm.

"Because I know he's lonely and I know you're lonely and I think you could be really good friends," she said, matter of fact, as though she hadn't just manipulated her own mother and a man she barely knows.

"Trixie, if you wanted to see him again you could have talked to me, and we could have arranged something,"  _Well, I'd have strong-armed him into it, because for all he loudly proclaims how much he hates children he really is pretty good with them._

"No! That's not what I meant!" Trixie pouts up at her mom, sparks of rebellion in her eyes before it just . . . vanishes. "I think that you and Lucifer would be great friends."

Chloe's silent for a long moment, just watching her daughter.

Because that hadn't been a clever little girl with a knack for emotions speaking to her right then. There had been something old, and verging on infinite in her eyes, and the tone-

That had been . . . something  _more._

_It's a very good thing I've made plans for this week. I'm going to need every second of it._

"Okay, Trixie. We'll talk about this later." She jerks her head towards the kitchen, causing a small giggle to erupt from her. Chloe seizes the opportunity, and engages her daughter in a minor tickle war - a tickle skirmish, if you will. Finally, still grinning, Chloe shoos her off to finish her packing while she goes to deal with the two men in her kitchen.

When she walks in, Lucifer is calmly eating his omelette, eyes on Dan all the while and that infuriating smirk on his face just to really push his buttons apparent. Dan, in comparison, is standing by the door, eyes wary and stuck on Lucifer, posture screaming tense and uncomfortable.

She didn't want to know what had happened; it was their relationship (ha), their problem, and she was going to keep her nose out of it as much as she could.

"Dan, thanks for dropping her back round, I know she had a good time," Chloe smiled sincerely at him, noting how his shoulders went down an inch and his neck stopped looking as though it would never bend again.

"No problems, Chlo'. Say, if you're not . . .  _busy_ this afternoon, how about-"

"Sorry Dan, but I've already got plans," Chloe breezed over him, a sympathetic shrug of her shoulders her only other reaction as she steps towards Lucifer.

Lucifer, seemingly done with his omelette, is taking his dish towards the sink.

"Lucifer, thank you for the omelette, but I won't be able to help you out with-" Chloe flounders, partly from watching the man rinse and then put his plate in the dishwasher, and partly from her not actually knowing what he had wanted when he first came around.

Dan, unfortunately, chose that time to butt in. "Help with  _what_?"  _Suspiciondistrustanger_ are what's he feeling, and the look he's giving Lucifer certainly shows it. "What do you want with Chloe?"

Okay, that's a bit too macho-man, must-protect-the-weaker-female for her liking. "Dan, it's fine. Lucifer and I have been working together, and we're . . . getting closer." She nearly chokes on that last bit, but it  _is_ true. "Asking a friend for help isn't this  _nefarious_ thing," She laughs weakly at her phrasing.

No one else does.

Dan, it seems, has interpreted her words as  _we're not currently screwing but don't worry that'll change soon,_ and Lucifer is staring at Dan with disdain in his eyes and that damned smirk on his lips once more.

Well, if they're not even going to pretend to listen to her then she sees no reason to let them bait each other at her house when she doesn't even want them there. "Okay! Time for you both to get going - it's a busy busy day, lots to do!" She chivvies them towards her door, keeping up a bright commentary over their protests all the while. "I'll see you guys later, and tell Trixie you said bye!"

Door shut, and she can drop the chipper tone and expression, thank fuck. Dealing with this sort of shit first thing in the morning on top of her plans is not her idea of a good day.

"Mommy?" Ah, and Trixie is done . . . or is pretending to be done. With that kid, it can be hard to tell how much is just good timing and how much is tactful timing. "Are we still going to see Grandma for the weekend?"

"Yeah, sweetie. Well, as much as she'll let us." Chloe smiles at her daughter, trying to match the brightness that she naturally exudes. (She used to have that, years ago. Then- well,  _life_ happened.) "She likes to see you, but she thinks that you should spend your vacation doing more than just visiting Grandma."

Judging by the wrinkled nose, Trixie isn't in complete agreement. Ah well; a few days visiting her will be pleasant for them all.

"Now - what time are our flights?" Chloe muses out loud, grabbing her own suitcase.

Trixie takes the bait. "Half past three!" She chirps, backpack settled on the floor beside her own little suitcase (covered in stickers from both Chloe and her. Family tradition, practically.)

"And when do we have to check in with our luggage?"

"Quarter to three at the latest!"

"And where did I put those tickets?"

"Mom!" At the slightly frustrated whine, Chloe can't help grinning before flourishing the tickets in front of her face.

"Well, what do you know, they were in my wallet all along." Trixie sticks her tongue out at her, before dragging her luggage outside. Chloe follows suit, going through her mental checklist all the while as she starts to set up the alarm system ( _keys, wallet, cellphone, snacks, notebook, pen, book for Trixie, book for me-_ ). Thankfully, Mrs Pierik next door knows what to do from all the previous trips they've made, so she doesn't even have to drop off the instruction sheet.

Chloe's cellphone beeps at her. Frowning slightly, Chloe checks it as she watches Trixie, just making sure she doesn't impulsively decide that she absolutely  _has_ to take some flowers for when she visits her Grandma, preferably those from Mrs Pierik's garden because they're just  _so pretty._

It's Dan.  _Really, Chloe? Him? I thought you had taste._

Fuck him. Fuck him and his fucking high horse and his pettiness and his damned, illogical,  _stupid_ possessiveness over her. She's going on vacation with her daughter to see her own mother, and to start giving her some training. She's managed to get a week off from the department (there was no way they'd give her the whole of the summer break to look after her daughter, but they would give her a week), she has no other responsibilities, and she is going to enjoy shucking off her duties for her family.

Decided, she turns her phone off. Well, she'd have to turn it off on the plane anyways, so why not now? (Seriously,  _fuck_ Dan. What an asshole.)

Chloe grins down at her daughter. Trixie gives her an excited smile back.

"Let's go see Grandma."

* * *

Her daughter is trying to push her towards Lucifer.

Oh, sure, she hadn't come out and said the words, and she'd been as evasive as she was able, but that was the truth - Trixie wanted her to be closer to Lucifer.

. . .

This is the first time her daughter has done such a thing.

Not even when she and Dan first separated did Trixie pull something like this. And she could have done so then, easy. It would hardly have been a difficult task to convince both her parents to be at a particular place at a particular time, and then smile hopefully at them so that they would at least be civil.

But she hadn't.

And until now, her daughter hadn't really turned her devious ways on her.

Which was pretty damn significant.

She was really going to have to have a proper, grown up, sit down conversation with Trixie about Lucifer. And likely soon, given the way things had been going so far.

(And . . . she hopes that it is Trixie pushing her towards Lucifer and not . . . something  _else._ )

* * *

They spend two days with her mom; catching up, really. Trixie babbles on, Chloe scrutinises medical records and watches her mom for even a moment of weakness, and Penelope surveys her surroundings like a gracefully ageing lioness.

There's laughter, and jokes aplenty - both Penelope's acerbic observations, Trixie's unintentional physical comedy (Chloe really needs to work on that too, thinking about it), and Chloe's sarcasm.

And when Trixie is tucked up in bed and devouring a book, Chloe and Penelope settle down to really  _talk._

Well, Chloe tries to. But she's not a masochist, and even though she knows they have to talk about this, she's perfectly happy to wait and silently sip wine as Penelope gathers her own grit.

"They're currently saying two years, but the specialist I was talking to said that I'd already beaten their previous estimates so it wasn't certain."

Chloe exhaled slowly. Deep end it was, then.

"And you're . . .?" God, she's a coward sometimes.

Penelope, it seems, has no problems facing her own mortality. (She admires her for that. She's pretty sure she wouldn't be able to face the possibility of her own death with such dignity and poise.) "I've been undergoing rounds of chemotherapy; my last one was two months ago, and it seemed to help. I'll be going in for a round of examinations in two weeks to find out for sure."

Wordless, emotionally numb as she feels, Chloe pours herself more wine. Penelope is having dark grape juice - non-alcoholic. "Doctor's orders," she'd said, a disdainful twist on her lips as she raised her own wine glass.

Her mother is going to die. And not in ten years, not even in five years - she's going to be dead before Trixie even gets to high school.

Chloe starts crying quietly. She just- it's her  _mom._

* * *

The visit, overall, goes pretty well. Penelope doesn't seem too tired, or worn out, or physically not good. Trixie has a whale of a time having fun with her grandma - the occasional snuck ice cream 'hidden' from Chloe - and has been taking as many photographs as she can about the trip. Chloe . . . after the initial emotional and mental breakdown, she's been . . . better. It was cathartic, being able to just let go and have her mom right there ready to get her back up again.

They'd had a couple more quiet conversations after that; Penelope didn't believe in sheltering those she loved from hard truths, even if they might have been happier in the short term about it.

So Chloe had gotten all the information on her mother's condition. About the cancer, and how it had been responding to chemotherapy and radiotherapy, and about the cost of it - physical, mental, and monetary.

Good news was that her treatments were partially subsidised by the government, and she could afford to pay for what wasn't covered by her medical insurance. And her mental state- well. Penelope Decker was a force of nature, and had always exerted full power over her body;  _mind over matter always, darling._

Bad news was that her body wasn't coping as well as they hoped with the treatment. The cancer was being stubborn, so she'd had to have more rounds of treatment than they were, strictly speaking, comfortable with. It wasn't unheard of, or anything, it was just a bit more than would be recommended to a patient of her age, weight, ethnicity, and gender.

So - up to two years.

* * *

Chloe left with a slightly subdued daughter, an ironclad promise for weekly skype sessions, and absolutely determined to help her daughter as much as she could.

Chloe had been thinking, you see. And what she'd been thinking was that there was no guarantee that she herself would be around long enough to help her daughter. ( _If I caused this in Mom how do I know that it won't happen to-_ )

Which meant she couldn't keep delaying it like she had been. She'd let herself be distracted, and told herself that she could wait until she was a bit older and more mature, until she understood people a bit more, until-

No. She'd been making excuses and putting it off.

She couldn't keep doing that, not when she'd just had it so excruciatingly rubbed in that, actually, she didn't  _know_ she'd have that time.

The rest of the trip - the remaining five days she'd booked off - was spent at the family cabin.

Which . . . sounded pretentious as fuck when she thought about it like that, as though she was two seconds away from rhapsodising about the refreshing nature of the mountain air and how hiking was the 'in thing' and all that sort of crap.

Given that their 'mountain cabin' was only a few steps up from camping - two rooms, a kitchen, and a living room, plus an annoyingly small bathroom - that would be a blatant misrepresentation.

And the most 'hiking' they do is when Trixie needs to vent her energy. It's more like an ongoing game of hide and seek that doesn't stray too far from the tracks. The tracks are good, and they can spend the time talking about whatever, so they tend to go for an hours-ish 'walk' each morning; it makes her teaching Trixie in the afternoons possible rather than the optimistic hope it'd be otherwise.

Day 1 is an eye opener for them both.

"Hey Trixie, come sit down with me, cutie," Chloe called out, sitting at the coarse wooden table in the living room.

Trixie had bounded over, making a beeline for the sunshine spot.

_Okay. You can do this. You can tell her. She's your daughter._

She spends a good moment just looking at Trixie, just soaking in her lovely child. Trixie, a bit confused, looks back at her patiently.

_Words should not be this hard._

"Okay," Chloe exhales, hands clutching her coffee mug. Trixie perks up, realising that whatever this is is finally starting. "Okay."  _Words, Decker, words._ "So, Trixie." And her daughter, her darling daughter, is still sitting there and clearly trying not to fidget. "Alright. Trixie, you know how you can just feel things about people?" _Just say it already, for fucks sake._  "Well, I can do the same thing, more or less."

Chloe takes a deep breath, opens her eyes, and raises her head to look at Trixie.

Trixie is looking at her, and there is just such -  _lovehopehappinessconfusion -_ thatit's a bit dizzying how intensely happy she's feeling, ignoring the undercurrent of confusion.

_Acceptance_. (Oh, thank fuck that it's not anger or betrayal or, or, or  _anything_ like that. Oh, thank god.) That's what Trixie's feeling.

"You can feel it too?" And Trixie isn't whispering, but in this cabin it's as though she couldn't get the words out any louder.

"I can. And-" Chloe hesitates, trying to figure out whether it would be too much to keep going, to come completely clean with her daughter about what she can do. Trixie just looks back at here, all those positive emotions beaming out of her without restraint.  _She can take it._ "And I can do some things with energy."

At that, Trixie practically lights up (heh) with her emotions and just her sheer interest in this skill that she doesn't have and that she didn't even know about.

She's partway through babbling her fifth question in a row when Chloe realises that it isn't just Trixie's happiness that's filling the cabin.

* * *

Days 2 to 4 are good.

She teaches Trixie what she knows about the empathy - how to build a wall, what works for her when it gets a bit much, and the basics of how to control emotions in others.

And she makes it very, very clear to her that this is Chloe's weaker ability, that Trixie herself will probably outpace her within even a couple of years.

She's tempted to lay down rules, like that she isn't to use her ability on others unless she's in danger, or that she can't use them freely until she's {x} years old. Dan would, she knows. Her dad . . . would, she's fairly sure.

Her mom wouldn't. Chloe won't.

Because she isn't going to stifle her child just to satisfy her own morality. Oh, she gives her some ground rules -  _be careful, find your limits, don't get caught_ \- but she makes it clear that it's up to Trixie to make her own rules. And she is abundantly, exquisitely detailed in what  _could_ happen if she's caught; it's not quite a horror story, but she gives her real life examples and links it in as much as she can so that her daughter  _knows_ the consequences.

Then she tops it off with a final bit of learning: you don't need it. It's an extra ability, but you will be just fine without it. Billions of people live from day to day without this sort of thing, and they are perfectly fine. So when in doubt - don't use it.

It's a bit serious, and there are some tears involved, but her daughter is just . . . incredible. Trixie just seems to  _get it_ that this can be dangerous, that there are some lines that can't be crossed. How she manages it, Chloe doesn't know, but it just reaffirms for her how wonderfully blessed she is with her child.

The last day . . . Chloe shows off a little. Trixie had been asking and asking, and making those big eyes of hers, and Chloe - she's only human, okay?

So the last day, she shows her all the little tricks she's worked out over the years with her energy ability.

The campfire, the electrical mains - they get a thorough workout so she can heat Trixie's plastic drink bottle enough to warp in her bare hands. And there's just enough at the end for her to be able to conjure up a small flame in the palm of her hand.

She will cherish that moment for a very, very long time. Trixie's sheer awe on her face, the joy in her emotions - it's electric to her even just thinking about it.

* * *

Back in LA, it's clear that she's been missed - well, that Dan and Lucifer needed attention while she was gone, fine.

Her phone has more than a couple of texts from both of them. And missed calls. The voicemails alone - _"Detective, why have you left me with your mentally challenged ex? I didn't think I'd done anything worth of this sort of punishment,"_ \- were going to be saved. Purely so she could use it to torment the other one.

And why were they so up in arms over her, and this is quoted verbatim,  _callous disregard for personal sanity by means of heartlessly fleeing_?

Because they had been forced to work together.

She's still slightly in awe of the lieutenant not backing down over the likely epic bitch fit Lucifer would have pitched. That woman is well-deserving of her office.

She figures she'd just pointed out to Lucifer that he was a) on probation, b) under her command, no matter how much he disliked it, and c) she couldn't get someone else to do it because it was his _vital_ connection that gave them the chance to solve this case.

(She really, really hoped that sex hadn't been involved, because she was at an all time high for genuine respect for the lieutenant, and that would put her back to her previous position (mid-ranking), if not below it. If she'd managed to do it sans sex, then she was banking on the lieutenant hitting one of Lucifer's trigger points and causing him to take the case seriously rather than half-assing it and being more hindrance than help.)

The pair of them have been, theoretically, working on a case about a missing girl. And, no, she hadn't had to be briefed about the case; she could figure that out purely by the whining voicemails that had been left on her phone - admittedly, mainly by Lucifer, but Dan had certainly dropped enough hints (intentional or not, she wasn't sure) that she could have figured it out with minor amounts of difficulty.

There had been a great upswing in voicemails after they'd showed up at the Player's Club. They both blamed the other for it; for thwarting their personal goal that was unrelated to the case at hand, that is. Lucifer resented Dan from stopping him from learning the 'secret' to how to 'bag any Betsy', which (Dan had explained-accused) meant her . . . and Dan resented Lucifer for not obliging him with a manly scuffle when he went for the jugular on hearing that his grand scheme was to screw her senseless.

So, yeah - kicked out.

_Men._

On the bright side, they'd managed to make contact with the missing girl's brother, with Dan _somehow_ managing to get the kid to take a contact card of his. She suspected that Lucifer had eye-whammied the kid, or something, and then slipped the card in while he was still dazed, because while Dan was usually fairly decent at talking with people, when he was distracted by something (e.g his intense and partially irrational hatred of Lucifer) his game dropped like anything.

So it hadn't been a total waste. Though she was now regarded . . . differently by the other officers. It was a combination of surprise, envy, confusion, and appraisal that was starting to grate on her nerves. She figured it had something to do with Lucifer's now widely-known declaration that they weren't fucking, which had previously been the widely-believed reason for their partnership.

There was a reason she stayed out of office politics.

And because her partner had been assigned to this case - a _missing person_ case, she was _homicide_ , and this was just irritating to her that she would be arbitrarily reassigned when there was almost certainly a genuine homicide case out there not a possible-homicide case - so was she.

And Dan was still involved as well.

Oh,  _goody._ Just what she wanted.

* * *

Carver Cruz - the guy running the Player's Club thing, and the last person seen talking to the missing Lindsey Johnson - was sketchy as fuck.

The guy had been jamming as many of his little sessions as he could into the past week and a half, seemingly desperate to get as many paying customers through the door as he could. Hell, the man had even set up semi-regular autographing sessions of his book, at five bucks a pop.

Basically, he'd been grabbing onto as much cash as he could in the time since Lindsey Johnson had disappeared.

These were not the actions of an innocent man.

If he was just ignorant that he'd been the last person to be seen with her, he'd be carrying on business as usual. If he knew her, knew that she was missing, and was innocent, he'd have approached the police long before now. Hell, if he was  _guilty_ and slightly intelligent he'd have approached the police long before now in an attempt to throw them off the scent.

But he hadn't.

He was very obviously gathering together as many monetary resources as he could, had blatantly not approached the police, and had been trying to stay as far away as possible from any officers.

_Something_ was clearly up.

But the point was moot; they'd spent the week investigating Cruz, and nothing had changed on their understanding or knowledge of the case.

It was time to start looking more into Lindsey Johnson.

Because their knowledge of her was slim pickings, and that was unacceptable in a case that was over a week old and was  _about her._

There was a reason that cops stuck to their specialities. Each section had their own methods, their own reasons, their own biases, and their own typical procedure for particular cases. And this case had had a probational semi-officer and a mainly homicide detective running it. ( _Bigger budget, please._ Please,  _Captain, make it so._ )

They had done what they would normally do for a case: focus on finding the person responsible based on what evidence they had rather than investigating the innocent victim.  
Problem was . . . they couldn't say for sure that Lindsey was dead. For all they knew, she'd had a major fight with her brother or someone and just fucked off to cool her heels with a friend.

But that was the thing -  _they didn't know._

Lindsey Johnson was Schrödinger’s victim - she was both dead in a ditch and sulking at a friend's house.

_Time to remedy that._

* * *

Dan had contacted the brother - Kevin Johnson, that was his name - when the guy had called to demand his daily update, which also consisted of a prolonged diatribe scorning Cruz's character (yet somehow managing to avoid swearing, which was slightly impressive).

The guy had agreed after a bit of hemming and hawing to come in for an interview. He seemed to get the impression that all they needed was this little chat and then they'd be able to move in on Cruz. Strange, that.

The kid - technically, young man, but he was lean and jittery enough that she automatically classed him as  _teenager_ in her head - was there on time, dressed in worn jeans and a dusty flannel shirt. Lucifer, fortunately, was overseeing this interview from the observation part of the one-way mirror beside her, as Dan talked to the kid.

"Kevin, you initially contacted us saying that your sister was missing-"

"Yeah, all 'cause of that damn Carver! She'd been recruited and all to his Player's Club, and the last I heard she was talking to him and I never saw her again!" He's clenching his fists over and over, leg bouncing up and down under the table.

"What time did you last see your sister?"

"About ten past six; she headed over to the event, and I was going to watch a movie later than swing by afterwards to pick her up."

"Is there-" Dan doesn't get the chance to finish the question.

"No! There is no way this was her fault!" Kevin isn't quite standing up, but that's looking more and more likely by the minute. "She wouldn't have just, just  _left_ me here! We're all each other has!" Then he seems to just . . . collapse in on himself. "We came out here because she heard about this job - 'They're always looking for hot chicks, Kevin'," he mimicked in a falsetto, eyes dead set on Dan. "'I'll get a job easy as pie, and you can find one too! It'll be a new start!'." He hunched his shoulders slightly, jaw clenching as he searched for the words.

Dan was content to sit back and let this little information dump happen, more intent on watching Kevin for anything that said he was holding back or lying than directing his verbal purge.

"The last couple of years . . . ain't been so good to us. Our Pa died when we were little, and Ma followed a few years after. Couple years ago it was Grandpop, and we both did some stupid things after that. This year," he swallows, looking down at the table. "This year was supposed to be a good year, y'know? We had all these plans, and we were gonna get out here and start a new life, really move on from it all. But then-" His expression darkens, and he abruptly sits back and crosses his arms, "-that damned Carver Cruz happens and suddenly my sweet, beautiful sister is just  _gone_ and I don't know what to  _do._ "

Kevin seems one wrong word away from bawling then and there.

Dan, hurriedly, starts talking once more, keen to avoid any water works. (What a brave, brave man.)

"So you called the police at eleven p.m., yes?"

It seems to do the trick. "Yeah, yeah I did. We were meant to meet at quarter till, but she never showed up."

"And you didn't think that, maybe, she could have-"

Kevin, it seems, is very keen to defend his sister's honour. "No, she ain't like that! She don't just, just  _sleep around_ with people! And she wouldn't run off and leave me without a word, either, before you accuse her of  _that_ next!"

This isn't working. Dan's doing his job, asking the questions that need to be asked in the best way possible, but the suspect seems ready to go off on a hair trigger if there's even a hint of insult towards his sister.

Dan isn't so blind as to miss the signs, and he's already making his excuses as he stands for the exit.

Chloe makes for the door herself, ready to tag in for Dan. Lucifer, it seems, isn't. In fact, he seems perfectly happy to just sit in the room and look blankly at the kid, mind clearly elsewhere.

Well, fine. She can take this interview on her own.

* * *

Chloe gives him five minutes to cool down, then comes in with a cup of coffee for him and one for her. Bribery, maybe, but he probably needs it if he's been running himself ragged over his missing sister.

"Kevin, I'm Detective Decker, and I'm working this case along with Detective Espinoza. He's had to step out for a bit, and he asked me to take over this interview." She softens her voice, making sure that their eye contact is long and that she's half looking up at him (the benefits of being a slightly below average height for a woman). "Is that alright?"

Kevin seems to be calming down. Caffeine or a female officer whose clearly sympathetic - who knows? "I- uh, yeah. Yeah, that's fine." Hurriedly, he clears his throat, straightening up in his chair.

Internally, Chloe raises an eyebrow. That . . . is a major difference in reaction from a male to a female officer. With Dan, he was prickly as a hedgehog; with her, he seems to take it as an unsaid law that she's the boss. It could perhaps be partly due to his previous interactions with Dan, but that seems too extreme a difference to be put down to just that.

"Now, I don't want to have to have to make you rehash what's been said, so I'm going to talk and you can correct me if I go wrong, alright?" Jeez, it feels awkward being so gentle in an interview room, but Kevin's staccato nod tells her she isn't doing too shit at it. "You and Lindsey decided to come out here awhile back-"

"Six months," he interjects, eyes focused on the table. Chloe makes a point of not saying anything, just looking at the kid with soft eyes and a sympathetic stance ( _head tilted up so he seems to be in a higher position, the merest hint of a sad smile on lips, leaning towards him with hands now stilled from writing in the notebook_ ) until he looks at her. She doesn't say anything, just tilts her head to the side. Interestingly, he takes it as a reprimand, since he flushes and blurts out, "Sorry, ma'am," then goes straight back to staring at his hands on the table.

_Something's off here._

She doesn't know what, and she doesn't have the time to think about it in the middle of an interview that's gone wrong once already, but it's certainly something she'll be coming back to.

"You two came out here six months ago, and Lindsey got a job pretty quick working at a Player's Club." Clear voice, so as to be picked up on the microphone without difficulty, but not loud, otherwise he'll think she's accusing him of something. It's a thin line, but she's had practice at it.

"Not just there! She was working towards being an actress, an' she was real good at it too!" The pride of a brother shines through, even with the pall of her disappearance hanging over him. "She was an extra in a couple of TV episodes, and she was always getting these calls from people."

"And what about you, Kevin?" She leaves it at that - let him fill in the gap with whatever; they tend to have a better idea than her about what she needs to know, since their mind jumps to their biggest worry.

"Things weren't going as good for me, ma'am. I've always been good with my hands, and I'm a decent shot with a rifle, but there ain't a lot of work in LA for someone like me."

"So Lindsey was the one who was bringing in most of the money, and things were going alright for you guys." A curt nod, eyes still glued to his hands. "And then, a week ago, she disappeared after work-"

"After she was last seen talking to Carver Cruz," he interjects, anger clear on his face and in his voice.

"Who saw her talking to Cruz?" Chloe keeps her voice calm, curiosity clear. It seems to do the trick; rather than going off on a rant about Cruz, Kevin's diverted to thinking about the particulars of the case.

"One of the other girls who worked there; Sarah, or Sandra, or something." He shrugs, uncomfortable. "I never really got to know them. They weren't-" He slams his mouth shut, looking mulish.

Fine; she can take a hint. He's not going to be talking about that without some hard-core persuasion technique, and that would be practically the antithesis to the persona she's been showing him this whole time.

"And after that, you contacted the police." Chloe stops for a moment, just looking at the kid. He hunches his shoulders slightly, but doesn't look up at her. "Why didn't you leave a contact number with them after reporting her missing?"

"I didn't have a cellphone." It's too fast, it's said too readily - and it's not true. She's blocked her empathy off right now - after her time with Trixie, she just needs a rest from it, and she finds it tiring even on her good days - but she's more than that ability. That answer was pre-prepared, he's avoiding eye contact, and who the hell doesn't have a cell phone in this day and age?

"How did you call the police in the first place?" It's a bit more of an effort to keep her tone sympathetic, but she manages.

"I, uh, my phone was working then," He's changed his posture - now he's sitting back in his chair, shoulders pushed down with rigid control, eyes not leaving hers for a moment. "But after that I dropped it when I was trying to open the door. It broke." He adds unhelpfully, still holding her gaze.

Chloe leans back in her seat, mind racing. There's something going on here; she just doesn't know  _what._ "Kevin, thank you for your help. We'll be in touch if we have any more questions, or if we find your sister." She walks him out of the precinct, exchanges a handful of polite nothings, and then leaves him waiting for the bus.

"He's not telling us something," is the first thing Lucifer says to her. Well, he's not wrong. "Something important." Chloe starts tapping her fingers on her desk. Ideally, she'd pace, but there isn't the space for that. Still, there's one thing she does know for sure-

"We need to talk to Carver Cruz."

"We've tried that already, Detective." Lucifer says, exasperation in his tone if nowhere else. "And it wasn't working."

_Yeah, because you two started a fight at his event and got tossed out on your asses._ "It wasn't working for you and Dan." Lucifer, never slow on the uptake, starts grinning.

Chloe does not like the look of that. "What are you thinking?"

"I've been wondering what you'd look like all dolled up, Detective, and it seems I'm going to be finding out quite soon." He turns away, and mutters, "Maybe this case hasn't been a complete waste of time after all," more quietly. Not quietly enough, but he's still improved from when they first met and he would have said that to her face.

Still- "Missing girl that needs help, Lucifer," she says through gritted teeth. Got to keep in character, after all (the gritted teeth was the only truly false part of that, to be honest).

He looks at her innocently, as though he never said anything. Uh-huh.

Chloe shakes her head, cuts her losses, and moves on. "He's holding an event this evening at a bar -  _Shiver,_ I think - cash bar and all."

"So we'll be showing up to have a little chat with him," Lucifer grins, something in him settling on hearing the plan.

Well, he got most of it. "The plan is for _me_ to go in there and get him talking, maybe get him someplace else if I can." Lucifer clearly doesn't like that.

She isn't dumb enough to out and out forbid him from coming - that would be like dangling chocolate cake in front of Trixie - but she needs him to understand just why they're doing it this way. "I'm the one going in because he's going to know your faces after you and Dan went to his event earlier and got yourselves noticed. I fit the profile of people he wants there, and you and Dan can be back up for me."

That, it seems, is all the opening Lucifer needs to launch in to a speech defaming every part of Dan - personality, physical appearance, intellect - that, really, is more for his benefit than hers. Hell, he didn't even need to go to the trouble of this rant: she already knew that the pair seemed to loath each other.

So it was with no remorse that she let him keep going and merely made encouraging noises in the pauses he leaves, all the while filling out paperwork and getting started on the backlog of emails her work inbox had acquired. It's nearly reassuring, thinking about it; the days go on, the paperwork is eternal, and Lucifer's determination to bitch about Dan whenever possible lives on. Some people need God in their lives so that they know everything is alright; for her, if Lucifer gives Dan a genuine compliment without being back-handed, mocking, or condescending, then she knows that the shit is going to hit the fan big time.

* * *

Much as she dislikes having to do it, she does end up 'all dolled up', as Lucifer puts it, in order to get into the club. She's wearing a dress that she hasn't worn in, fuck, _years_ really - back when she and Dan were still together and pretending the wheels on the bus were going round and round (rather than acknowledging that the bus was on fire and it was still going only because the brakes were broken plus the driver was unconscious and not actually steering). It's a deep, vibrant red that matches her lipstick, composed of thick straps on her shoulders, a neckline that dips a little more than she wears day to day, and falls in loose, billowy lines to her knees. It's a dress that hints rather than explicitly shows, and she's always had a bit of a confidence boost wearing it, something about it just making her feel that bit more secure and confident. She's wearing black strappy sandals - low ones though; she's not so dumb or masochistic to wear the sort of sky-high fuck-me heels that would have typically accompanied her outfit. A dash of mascara, and she's good to go.

(Trixie had practically ambushed her with her camera when she saw her just before she headed over to Lux to rendezvous with Lucifer. The babysitter - Emma, a college sophomore student, who lives just down the road and has done for years - will no doubt be regaled with what would amount to a slideshow of pictures when Trixie has even a moment of opportunity.)

Chloe stands in the elevator, nerves subsumed by concentration as she goes over the plan in her head. It's what she's always done, if she's uncertain: plan, or at least go over what she knows needs to be done and what she can do.

She can do this. She knows she can do this. Getting the guy alone might be difficult, but she can probably get him to follow her out of the club if she mentioned Lindsey. Manipulation . . . is something that has been taught to her for years and by a master of the art. The chances of her having any difficulties are negligible.

The elevator doors open and Chloe steps out, double-checking her clutch for security.

(It's not that she hasn't been in the penthouse - Lucifer's private, personal space - but more that she's never been here with such a clear deadline before. Okay, never at this time of night.

. . . She's just feeling a bit antsy about this, alright? The set-up seems a prime opening for him to try, once more, to seduce her; romantically lit, private, and her guaranteed to not be wearing anything with blood or sweat on it. He's never taken it too far, and hasn't even seemed to think about physically forcing her . . . but it still sets her a bit on edge having a lighthouse so focused on her.)

Lucifer isn't visible when she gets in there, so she occupies herself with her phone; there's always an email marked 'urgent' that needs to be seen to . . . even if the definition of urgent is stretched beyond recognition for most of them.

"Detective - the dark blue or the charcoal grey?" Is said from  _right behind her_.

Chloe, understandably, nearly jumps out of her skin. Her saving grace is that she doesn't shriek, and instead manages to turn more-or-less smoothly - and then finds herself nearly nose to nipple with the man. Because he is shirtless. And directly in front of her.

"Gah!" She stumbles back a few steps, catching herself on the piano bench. Lucifer just keeps watching her, that damnable smirk of his on his lips as she desperately fumbles for her equilibrium. "What the hell, Lucifer!"

"Well, I was trying to decide which shirt to wear, and I thought that-"

"Not the shirts! Why the hell were you right behind me when you decided to speak up!"  _And shirtless. Very, very shirtless._

"I wanted to make sure I had your full attention, Detective. Why else would I do that?" He is, somehow, trying to pull off the innocent look. It's not working (and not just because _he_ _is topless did she mention that_ ).

"Because you like pulling the rug from under me!"

"That's not all I like," He purred, slinking forwards and making what little space here is between them even smaller. Chloe starts stepping backwards, eyes riveted on his face.

"Lucifer - stop!"

And . . . he does. He stands there, just looking at her, as she stumbles a little bit further away, breath huffing out of her like she had just run a race. His expression isn't the easy, lascivious smirk he usually wears, but something more . . . concerned. Almost as though he thinks-

_No._

No. Chloe is not going there; that is a bad place to go in her head, and this is not the right time.

Chloe clears her throat, keeps her distance, looks him in the eye (and  _nowhere_ else) and starts talking. "Get a shirt on, now - we need to get going. Cruz has a habit of staying for only the first hour and a half at his events, then getting out of there. It's going to take at least half an hour to get to the bar; we need to-"

"What happened to you, Detective?" Lucifer wasn't really listening to her; the words went in one ear and right out the other for all the attention he paid them. He's been looking at her while she spoke, eyes scrutinising her - her face, her posture, her clothing - like he thinks he can get his answers if he just _looks_  hard enough.

"What do you mean?" She deflects automatically, eyes doing a half second jump to the elevator. He notices, and a frown appears on his face.

"Why are you so opposed to my presence? Why are you reacting this way?" He doesn't advance on her, but he still seems to almost loom over her as his energy writhes under his control. His face darkens, and that underlying  _angergriefmisery_ that is never too far away seems to surge to the fore. "Who hurt you?" Despite it all, he keeps his voice gentle.

"Lucifer . . ." She doesn't know what to say. This has just spiralled so rapidly out of control that, even with her advantages, she has no clue what to say or do to defuse this conversation.

They . . . stand there for a bit, looking at the other, watching for  _something_ to tell them what to do next. Chloe is bemused, and out of her depth, and just doesn't know what she should be doing now. For all the situations that her mom has practiced with her, all the theoretical scenarios that have been debated at length - this has never made the list.

Lucifer seems to be dwelling on dark thoughts, resolutely not allowing himself to stray or get out of them.

"We have to get to the club."

The words drop into the uneasy silence. Lucifer, for once, keeps his mouth shut and turns to his room to get-

_What the hell is that on his back._

But Chloe doesn't have time to ask, let alone have a closer look, because he's gone through to his room and she's standing there alone with her mind swirling with questions and clinging to her clutch.

_How did that happen? When did that happen? What the hell caused that to happen? Are you okay? Does it still hurt?_

But she can't ask them because of her own insistence that they have to get going, because he thinks she's just like everybody else, because this shit just keeps piling up and she has to keep moving forwards with barely a chance to breath let alone have a chance to actually get some answers.

She keeps her mouth shut.

Lucifer comes out (wearing a shirt and all the rest of the clothing necessary for public decency acts to be satisfied), still dangerously silent, but looking at her with something like appraisal and curiosity on his face.

(If she hadn't just been mentally derailed she'd be worried about it.)

They make their way out of Lux, get into the car, and start heading over to the club.

Chloe . . . is on autopilot right now. Her mind- it's just been a bit too much for her, on top of everything else that has been happening over the past few weeks and months, and if she didn't have an active job happening right now with a life on the line, she'd be curled up in a corner.

It's properly sinking in that her partner is Lucifer Morningstar. Not that she hadn't registered it previously, she'd just been . . . avoiding thinking about what that actually meant. Details wise.

An angelic being, who was created by God, and who has been running Hell for eons.

She breaths deeply, absently registering that Lucifer isn't even pretending to look at the scenery now - he's blatantly staring at her.

_Okay. He's . . . exactly who he said he was_. Another deep breath, and Chloe's brain stops standing still and starts running.  _He always tells the truth, and he keeps his word, and he hasn't hurt me._

That gives her pause, because she hasn't consciously realised that in the past, but - he hasn't.

And it would be very, very easy for him to do so; just look at what happened with that guy from their last case together - a push with his supernaturally enhanced power, and he went flying.

"Detective?"

Chloe inhales sharply, shakes her head once, and gets back into it. "When we get to the club, you'll be waiting in the back alley in the car, with a couple of officers standing around smoking outside so that they can get near without him fingering them for cops. Dan will be near the front entrance in his own vehicle, just in case Cruz decides to break with his previous MO and head out the front when he leaves."

" _Detective_." His tone is warning, with that curl of agitation that informs her his patience is running out and it's her own fault if she doesn't heed it.

"Lucifer." Her voice is calm, thankfully. And she has the reason of driving the car for not looking him in the eye. "Right now, we need to help Lindsey Johnson. After that, we can-" she swallows, sure that she'll regret her next sentence, "-we can talk about things."

_Things._ Wow, she's articulate tonight. She can spin it as trying to give herself an out, leaving herself an opening to wriggle out of having to talk about what he thinks they need to talk about - but if she's honest with herself, she's still in a bit of a tailspin and her mind is most definitely not firing on all cylinders (he's the Devil, he's the Devil,  _he's the Devil_ ).

Lucifer clearly doesn't like it, but a curt nod accepts her words for now.

Chloe breaths out, a quiet exhalation of relief and release.

(Normally, her brain would be spinning through scenario after scenario, plotting and planning on how she can twist this to her advantage; her mother's work is never more clearly realised when she's on the back foot and has to fight to get out on top. But right now . . . she's too tired, too heartsick, and too off-balance to be plotting.)

She quietly pilots her way to their rendezvous point, mind thinking about their police operation, and determinedly ignoring Lucifer's cautious, probing eyes that remain on her the entire time.

* * *

Things go great and exactly to plan - right up until they've herded Cruz into the alley and he whips out a gun.

And promptly points it at his own head.

_Fuck._

Dan's barking orders into his radio, having the other officers back down, and frantically calling through to try and get into contact with a negotiator. Lucifer is looking at the man, visibly measuring his worth; she can practically see the moment he decides that, no, this one wouldn't be a great loss if the gun did go off, and then stay still and not in reach of the gun.

_Double fuck._

"If you come any closer I-I'll shoot!" He's terrified, you don't have to be an empath to know it - his hand is shaking, and his eyes are darting from person to person like he thinks they'll take a step closer the moment he can't see them. Shaking slightly, he backs himself back into a wall, eyes still going every direction.

( _You're always told to be calm and not aggravate a person on the edge; take it case by case, darling. Sometimes a person needs a verbal smack to get them back on an even keel, and sometimes they just want someone to tell them that they're right and everyone else is wrong. Judgement and experience will let you learn when to crush and when to coddle._ )

Chloe sidesteps until she's in his view. Behind her back, she gestures for everyone else to step down and back off. "Carver, we just want to talk,"

"I can't talk to you!" Red flag -  _can't._ Not  _won't,_ but can't; so why can he  _not_ talk to them? What makes it so imperative that he's willing to hold a gun to his head to prevent it from happening? "You need to just go away and leave me alone!"

"Carver, I'll stand here and I won't move, alright?" She's trying for coaxing, calm voice and body language alike, palms up and appealing to him.

"No! Just get away!" He's panicking, not thinking straight, and his emotions are so intense they nearly scorch her when she tentatively reaches for him.

"Carver, we can't go away until we know that people are safe, alright?"

For whatever reason, there is a massive spike in his feelings on hearing that.

Normally, she'd exploit the ever-loving fuck out of that - but Lucifer has finally decided to include himself in this and is making himself a target at the other end of the alley, the moron.

"Now Carver, the Detective just wants to have a nice talk with you, so why don't you put the gun down, hm?"

It's not working; if anything, he seems even more jittery on seeing him near to him. "No! No talking! Just back off, before I-"

"Oh come now, you're not going to do that, are you?" Still walking closer and he _has_ to be doing something with his own ability, because Carver hasn't looked away from his face and doesn't even seem to register that he's moved closer to him. Not taking any chances, Chloe starts edging closer herself, signalling Dan with a jerk of her head to stay out of sight while he does whatever he thinks is necessary. "We're just having a nice talk right here, so why don't I take that gun off you-"

Too far. "No!" Just like that, Cruz has the gun back up and pointing right at Lucifer, emotions on a boil and hand just as wobbly. "If you come any closer, I- I'll shoot!"

Lucifer sighs, and rolls his eyes, shifting his weight on to one foot ( _getting ready to move closer_ ). "Very well, you leave me no-"

Chloe tackles Cruz. He goes down, hard, and his finger tightens automatically on the trigger as he goes down.

The gun fires.

* * *

Generally speaking, and making sweeping assumptions that she tended to hate with the dull dislike of someone who'd been subjected to previous biases . . .

Men fight with their bodies. Physical, painful, and potentially causing permanent damage. Mentally? It doesn't have a massive effect, depending on how serious the fight was, how public it was, and how one-sided it was.

Women fight with their words. Mental, painful, and potentially crippling. Physically? Doesn't do much, depending on how vicious the words were, if it occurred in public, and the confidence level of both women.

Lucifer was very, very dangerous.

He understood the strengths and weaknesses of both forms . . . and could use both with a devastating precision. And more than that - he wouldn't hesitate to use his weapons, to mentally or physically attack someone.

Chloe was wary of him, sure, but she didn't fear him.

And not because she just _believed_ that he would never hurt her, or that she couldn't fathom him turning on her.

No, she didn't fear him because she trusted him and she understood him. Not entirely, but she didn't think that was even possible, but a bit.

She knew some of his triggers, and their interactions meant that, when combined with her empathy, she wasn't entirely at sea when it came to him. Sure, her map had plenty of blank spaces, but at least she _had_ a map and wasn't floundering along with the belief that he was a particularly bizarre individual. Psychoses like his weren't an everyday event, and that he was able to function on his own in the world- well, if he'd been a genuine human it would be impressive. 

* * *

Bullet wound to the leg. It means that Lucifer is excluded from continuing on with the rest of the operation. He was lucky; if she hadn't tackled Cruz, the bullet would have hit him in the chest. Doesn't matter how poor a marksman you are if your target is standing right in front of you and coming closer to you, you're going to hit them where you're aiming. As it is, he got a shot to his right lower leg; though, on examination, it was more a graze than anything.

After he'd been shot, Lucifer had just . . . shut down.

He'd seen, eyes blank, as Cruz was man-handled into a vehicle. He'd let her place an arm under his shoulders and support him down to the ground, without even a quip about her taking advantage. He'd stared at the wall opposite him, eyes empty, as a paramedic came and assessed the wound, declared it non-urgent, recommended a visit to a clinic to get a prescription and a more thorough examination (x-rays were pointedly mentioned) then left having thoroughly bandaged up his leg. Hell, the man didn't say a word when the paramedic cut his pants in order to have access to the wound - nothing! Not even a scathing look at the damage done to the (no doubt) designer pants.

She was officially freaked out.

But her  _fucking_ job meant that this was added to the pile of 'Shit That I Can't Comprehend And Need To Freak The Fuck Out About' for tomorrow to deal with.

She called Maze, gave her a brief explanation and ignored her attempts at replying, then handed the phone to Lucifer.

It stirred him to start speaking a bit, at least; curt sentences were still better than the stony silence he'd been sitting in with her.

Anyways, it was enough for him to be able to arrange with her his collection at the precinct.

Still- "How are you really doing?"

Humourless chuckles are his first response. She doesn't take the hint, and stays crouched down beside him, watching Dan interrogating Cruz in the car.

It's a long silence as they stay there; him on the cold floor of an alley, brick wall at his back, and her balancing on her shoes beside him, tiredness clear in her eyes even as her red dress does bugger all to protect her from the night wind.

"It's impossible."

She doesn't need to ask what he means - he told her himself, the first case they had.

"See, I've been thinking about that," she keeps her voice light, and keeps her eyes away from him even as he tilts his head to look at her, the first flare of  _something_ that isn't emptiness in his eyes. "And you said you're immortal, yeah?" She doesn't wait for his nod, just keeps barrelling on because she's been wanting to dig into this inconsistency for _weeks_. "But immortality is never dying; invulnerability is not getting hurt. Different things."

Her voice is soft, not travelling beyond the two of them, but it's still enough to get him riled back up to near-normal levels of arrogance. "I am immortal  _and_ invulnerable, and I have powers that you couldn't imagine, Detective, so you can take your technicalities-"

"Then why are you bleeding?"

Turns out you only need one, truthful sentence to take the wind out of his sails.

"I don't know. I have lived millennia, and this is the first wound from mortal weapons I have ever received."

Quicksilver grin, and that ember of emotion suddenly flares to life.

"Makes you wonder,  _Detective,_ what else has changed?" Bright teeth flash at her, unrepentant as his eyes slither up and down her body.

_What - oh yeah, I said that I'd never sleep with him._

"That hasn't." She whips back, relief curling in her at the return of the Lucifer she knows.

"Oh? I saw you looking back at Lux, Detective; you couldn't take your eyes off my magnificence," he (there's no other word for it) _smoulders_ at her.

And that takes the wind out of her sails. Because- "I was looking at the scars on your back."

"Ah." Lucifer looks . . . uncertain, she thinks. On anyone else she'd know; but Lucifer doesn't doubt, never hesitates, and always seems to know what he's doing even if he just made up his mind two seconds ago.

"How-" Chloe licks her lips, trying to figure out how to phrase it. _Fuck it._ "What happened?"

"My father." The words drop from his mouth; not lightly, and not without a measure of derision (for him? God?), but with an underlying heaviness that she just can't interpret. "Well, technically, I cut my wings off- well, Maze did it for me - but it happened because of dear old Dad."

There's a bitterness that saturates each word, and she . . . doesn't know what to do.

"Lucifer . . ." He's looking at her again, emotions back to his usual muted level if a little higher than usual, and there's something vulnerable in his eyes.

She can't confess right now. It's just a shit idea, and- no.

"I am so sorry this happened to you, and if you ever want to talk . . ." She tries to put as much compassion, as much earnest support, truth and sympathy as she can into it. Because . . . that is genuinely how she feels. 

He looks at her (a running theme of this case), and gives a small nod.

It's enough.

They stay there in silence until Dan calls her over; he's done talking with Cruz.

She leaves - after checking that he's fine to wait there for Maze, that he's comfortable - and doesn't see him watching her as one hand compulsively rubs over the neatly wrapped bandages on his leg. 

* * *

Dan had gotten Cruz's part of the story out of him while she and Lucifer had been talking.

Turns out that Lindsey isn't missing - she's been kidnapped. And the reason for that?

Because Carver Cruz, a king of players, a man who extols the virtues of viewing women as weak prey there for men to exploit and use as they wish . . . had fallen in love with her. They had been together for four months, and he was about two steps away from looking for a fancy ring.

Chloe's letting Dan take lead on this case; because it wasn't hers originally, she's a homicide detective, and she just doesn't like the guy.

If she had to, she'd be able to put that to the side (it's someone else's life on the line), but she doesn't.

And it is one thing if you're a sexist bastard who doesn't think and can have his biases pointed out to him . . . but it's another thing entirely to purposefully perpetuate these sexist stereotypes that women need to be protected and it has to be a big strong man who does that when you're aware that it's bullshit.

The kidnappers contacted him soon after Lindsey went missing, telling him that he had to get the money - some ludicrous amount - together or that Lindsey won't be in one piece for very long.

And the proof they'd offered him?

Some photographs. A brief phone call with a teary girl on the other end. (Those could be faked fairly easily, so long as you knew a decent female actress and someone who could actually use photoshop rather than just claiming that they could.)

And, of course, that she was missing and her brother certainly had no idea where she was. (. . .  okay, that one's a bit harder to fake.)

So Schrödinger’s victim was neither dead in a shallow grave nor sleeping on a friend's couch; she was kidnapped.

And the reason that Cruz had been so keen to avoid the police? Well, they'd threatened Lindsey and he'd crumpled like a tissue.

. . . And he didn't think to get a friend or a third party involved and ask  _them_ to contact the police? Hell, he'd had all those security people at his events - just talk to the manager of those and get them to contact the police.

_What an idiot._

Fortunately enough for Cruz (who she hopes is stuck in a panic right now due to his lady-love being kidnapped and is actually slightly more intelligent than he's acting) the kidnappers have kept to their end of the deal, and Lindsey remains alive to plead with him to pay up and that she loves him.

And even better for her, he's arranged to do the switch over tonight, having finally raised the sum that they demanded with this last little soirée. So, thank fuck, this whole stupid kidnapping thing will soon be over and she can get back to her homicides.

(And, yes, that is a callous attitude to have and reflects poorly on herself - but she is beyond caring right now. She has gotten off holiday with Trixie, and a lovely holiday at that, and been immediately dragged into a pitched war between her ex and her current partner as well as, oh yeah, getting shoved into a case that isn't her specialty as well as being time critical. Her ability to care? 'Dregs' would be a generous way to put it at the moment.)

Dan's taking lead - he's the senior officer on this case between them, both from having been on the case since it started as well as having previous experience with abductions - and is busy organising his resources.

Carver won't be getting a phone call until an hour before the switch about the location. Until then, he's basically superfluous, and is just fluttering around annoying people.

Chloe stays out of the way, just watching the activity.

_I wish Lucifer was here._

The thought crosses her mind, surprising her. It's unexpected, but . . . it's true. She smiles to herself, secret and quiet, laughing at herself all the while.

She's attached to an immortal who, it has been recently proven to her, isn't invulnerable. 

* * *

Carter gets the text at 11.18 pm. It includes instructions to bring the money in a duffel bag to an automated oil refinery before 12.15, and that, if there was any 'funny business' (seriously, they used that phrase; what did they get their inspiration from, a film noire?) Lindsey would be the one to pay the price.

Seems that if they _were_ keeping an eye on Carver, it wasn't that vigilant.

Chloe is just relieved that they are getting on with things; she had the feeling that Carver was feeling out her male colleagues for potential recruits to his stupid little cabal, which would obligate her to black list them, thus making things more difficult than she needs.

Also, doing things is much better. Sure, she's still in her dress, but at least she's doing something rather than just sitting around listening to Cruz just keep talking. Albeit making sure that Cruz doesn't do anything stupid like, oh, actually  _do exactly what the immoral kidnappers want_ by ensuring that he can't go and heroically rescue his girlfriend on his own . . . and then promptly get himself killed so that the kidnappers can get away scot free, maybe killing Lindsey just to have a clean sweep.

So: babysitting. (She'll lord it over Lucifer anyway, that he missed his first kidnapping because he got his ass shot and has long been ferried back to the precinct to await Maze's tender mercies. Well, maybe not _lord,_ but certainly tease that he missed out on getting rid of  _that_ virginity.)

She drives them over to the refinery . . . ten minutes behind the actual rescue crew. Avoiding any mistakes, you know?

Her job is to keep Carver out of the way, ensure he doesn't do something dumb, and also facilitate the emotional reunion of him and his girlfriend in such a way that no public indecency occurs and he views the police positively, despite their disinclination to let him be a knight in shining armour.

* * *

By 12.35, Lindsey and Kevin Johnson are in police custody. They had between them three guns, a cock-eyed plan, and a grudge.

Because it turns out that, rather than Lindsey being kidnapped to be ransomed back to Carver, she had orchestrated this whole thing to get money out of Carver.

Lindsey is a bundle of seething hatred, all wrapped up with vindication and sadness and a few shreds of righteous justice. She views this whole thing as her getting vengeance on Carver. Chloe . . . kinda gets that, once she's heard her side of the story. The guy had swooped in on the girl when she was emotionally vulnerable (what with her last parental figure dying and leaving her an orphan and with only her brother definitely on her side), seduced her with kind words and coy compliments, fucked her, and then fucked off. She thought he was Prince Charming, come to love her and fill the hole in her heart.

Carver, it turns out, was just doing it to research for his fucking book. And, just to prove how much of an oblivious moron he was, he didn't even  _recognise_ the girl when they met again in LA.

(She empathises with Lindsey very much; if a guy she knew had fucked her over that much, and then didn't even  _remember_ her? Yeah, she'd want to fuck him over _good_.)

Lindsey had managed to enlist her brother into her little scheme easily enough; he was a good Southern boy, and he loved his sister - so going after the guy who had deflowered then ditched her wasn't something that he had a problem with.

What Chloe didn't really get was just  _how_ they'd managed to get so far with their scheme.

Lindsey and Carver had been together for  _four months_. She had used her own full name. She hadn't dyed her hair, or radically changed her appearance or anything like that. The key difference between the first and next time she and Carver met was that she had already had her heart broken, and was now nursing a burning hatred towards he man who'd done it.

Who she had found out had just used her for 'research'.

_What a fucking dick._

It's one thing to have sex with someone purely for the physical pleasure - it's another thing entirely to lead them on, to entice and seduce them, and to pretend an emotional connection just to get the physical pleasure.

That is a low thing to do to anyone, let alone a girl who'd never had a serious relationship and had fallen hard enough for the guy that she was willing to sleep with him when she had never done it before despite now being in her late teens.

But what really took the cake?

Carver Cruz was played hard.

The ultimate player, a man who taught others how to use women for their own means . . . had been completely taken in by a woman. She might have taken inspiration from his own book, but given that she'd managed to shanghai him into a serious long-term relationship when he'd previously never had one?

Carver Cruz had broken a girl, and from the wreckage had appeared a woman who could play any role she wanted, including being a loving girlfriend to a man she wouldn't spit on if he was on fire.

She wouldn't have been able to do it before meeting him.

Carver Cruz had created his own downfall.

Because after meeting her . . . he'd lost contact with what friends he had. He'd become isolated from any personal relationships except for her, to such a degree that he hadn't even thought about calling them for assistance when the love of his life was kidnapped.

And he had done it to such a degree that she had intended to be his black widow; she would seduce him, mind and body alike, then she would take all his material goods . . . and then she would kill him.

There had been three guns in that refinery. They would have only needed one to 'threaten' Lindsey in her role as abducted victim.

Lindsey, if not Kevin, had planned on killing Carver. After that, they probably would have headed back to their old place but now with a lot of money and all their financial woes gone . . . and then who knows.

Chloe figured that the reason they had reported Lindsey's 'abduction' in the first place was a back-up plan, a just-in-case Carver decided to contact a friend so that they could throw suspicion on him and his avoidance of the police. Plus, it would have just ramped up the pressure on Carver something fierce; told he couldn't contact the police without Lindsey being brutally hurt and then the police trying very hard to contact him? Yeah, that would have been one way to keep him from thinking straight. And after that initial contact, they would have had to keep up the ruse with Kevin being the worried, concerned brother . . . who only knew Carver as a random guy from her work who was the last person spotted talking to Lindsey.

Really, they did a pretty good job of implicating Carver . . . though their plan had hinged on him being so enamoured with Lindsey that he wouldn't be thinking completely straight. Well, and his being scared enough of the possibilities that he'd follow their every command.

And they'd let their emotions get the better of them. That had definitely contributed to their downfall.

Lindsey  _hated_ Carver with the intensity of those who had once been in love. Kevin's hatred was less intense, less personal, but still there and bolstered with  _protectivefurydespair_ that meant he wouldn't weep if he died. He might not have been able to pull the trigger himself, but he wouldn't have stopped his sister from exacting her vengeance via his corpse.

Actually, thinking on it, that could be part of why his interview was so weird - he was used to deferring to Lindsey, to a strong woman, which was why he'd cooperated with her but not with Dan. (. . . maybe. She doesn't have any other reasons springing to mind, and his being his sister's minion makes as much sense as anything.)

* * *

Chloe, fortunately, doesn't have to deal with the paperwork mountain that this case has generated; she isn't in charge, she's a secondary officer, and her partner was recently injured.

So she gets to head back to her house - complete with safely sleeping daughter - finally get out of her dress and into pyjamas, and then at last to bed.

(She'd need her sleep; Lucifer wanted answers, and he was rarely accused of being patient.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the actual episode, Lucifer is persuaded by Chloe to use Lux post the Player's Club thing - which is intended by Carver to raise the money necessary to pay off Lindsey's kidnapper. In this version, there is no way that Dan would have been able to persuade Lucifer, even if he had thought of it, so Carver is still short of the cash and desperately scrambling to produce it. So what does he do? He runs more of his workshops, and grabs on to any scheme that will get him cash that he can. As such, he is still below his goal when Chloe gets back into town and assigned to the case.
> 
> It's my personal head-canon that Lindsey was planning on killing Carver. In the episode, she walks out holding a gun, then fires it into Carver's back. This is the first time we've seen a gun in either her or Kevin's hands; previously they've been manipulating Carver by threatening Lindsey and having her look all abused and sad. So why would she need a gun? Answer: she's going to financially bankrupt him, break his heart, and /then/ kill him - thus fully getting her revenge, and maybe making it look as though he was doing something shady and it then went wrong with him ending up dead, neatly cutting them out of any investigation. Woman scorned and all, y'know.
> 
> Also, I did, like, zero research on the cancer section; just went with what I'd previously read about and my own experiences with the healthcare sector (. . . which is in a different country entirely). (Particularly for the money side of things.)
> 
> Finally, I did some grammar/spelling/minor corrections to most of the previous chapters; there hasn't been any plot-type changes, so no need to go back and reread (unless you want to, of course ;) )


End file.
